Hawk-Eyed Charlie
by sakurademonalchemist
Summary: A baby is left on a doorstep, only this time Petunia Dursley isn't the one who takes it in. Charles 'Hawk-Eye' Potter, retired Sniper of her Majesty's Army is surprised when his adopted grandson turns out to be his own flesh and blood. Now Jamie has to deal with learning magic on top of his regular studies. It's going to be a bumpy ride if he wants to be a pilot in the RAF!
1. Chapter 1

Normally he was a sound sleeper, but when the lights abruptly go off and you hear people talking in the middle of the bloody night followed by the sound of an engine that definitely needed maintenance along with the loudest sobbing you ever heard, well you tend to get up to see what was going on.

Charles "Hawk-Eyed Charlie" Potter was a retired sniper and member of the Royal Air Force gunners division before a lucky shot during the war took out his plane and he had nightmares of nearly dying in the crash. He had moved to Little Whinging to live out his retirement because nothing much happened in Surrey. Everyone in the neighborhood liked him to a point, despite the fact that he had all his old guns stored in the basement and still tested them occasionally.

They never reported it because, well, the man was a retired sniper and he had explained two years ago that he was only testing them. He never let the children see them or took them out of the basement.

Even the nosy Dursley family across the street respected him for his service during the war. Aside from occasionally going to see some old war buddies in London twice a month, Charlie didn't go out much.

However that was all about to change on this cold November night.

Charlie watched as the old man laid the package on the doorstep of the Dursley family without even letting them know about the delivery. He frowned, and got his slip-on shoes to walk across the street.

What he found there had him furious. It was an infant with only a worn blanket to keep him warm and not even a proper carrier! There wasn't even a wicker basket to help the poor kid retain warmth. He picked up the tiny tyke and noticed the note. Reading it, his anger only grew.

This Dumbledore expected Petunia to care for her nephew without bothering to ask her? And he said that the child had to stay whether or not they wanted him, some farce about blood wards.

Well that wouldn't do at all.

Charlie took the kid back into his house and noticed the poor boy needed a nappy change. Unfortunately he didn't have any and it looked like whoever had left him there hadn't bothered to include a diaper bag.

There was only one option. He took the kid with him, securing him as best he could without the proper carrier and went to the only place that was still open at two in the morning on a holiday.

**DING!**

"Can I help you sir?" asked the woman bored.

"Yep. Can you direct me to the toddlers and infants section?"

The woman blinked, then noted he had a child.

"He yours?"

"Some moron was daft enough to leave this poor kid on a doorstep without even a proper carrier, a diaper bag, or even a toy. All they left was some half-assed note. Don't know about you, but that doesn't seem right to me," said Charlie, his tone saying exactly what he thought of such people.

The woman, a mother of two, blinked then her eyes hardened.

"They just left the kid there? Only a note?!"

"Yup. Kid needs a diaper change too."

She didn't need to hear any more about such a blatant act of child neglect. She helped Charlie get all the things he would need immediately like food (the kid was at least a year old, and that meant somewhat solid foods), an infant carrier (which included lessons on how the hell to attach it with the seat belts and which way it had to face), diapers and other paraphernalia associated with changing a toddler, and a few toys for kids his age.

Charlie left the store feeling a hell of a lot better about things now that he could properly take care of the kid. At the very least he had spared the poor tyke from dealing with that horse-faced bint Petunia.

* * *

It was the news of the neighborhood. Someone had left an infant on old Charlie's doorstep and he had adopted the kid as a grandson. Everything was above the board and entirely legal. James 'Jamie' Potter was a happy toddler who had no idea how close he came to living with his less than tolerant relative.

As the years passed, it was clear that the kid was good for Charlie. Little Jamie got him to associate with the rest of the people in his neighborhood, not to mention livened up his house.

Of course there was the slight issue of the crazy cat lady Arabella Figg paying a little too much attention to Charlie and Jamie, but Charlie put an end to the rumors that he was dating her by pointing out he was a happily widowed man who had a grandson to spoil/train.

* * *

"_Hawk, what's your position over?"_ said a voice over his headset.

"This is Hawk, I'm in position and ready to go," said a ten-year old with green eyes and close-cropped black hair. On his right shoulder was a patch that labeled him as a senior cadet. Beneath that was another that claimed him to be a sniper, mechanic and basic field medic. He could set a broken bone and place a tourniquet with expert ease.

"_We're in position here. Just waiting for the Game Master to tell us to start,"_ said the other voice.

A loud horn blared into the forest. This was his favorite training exercise, because they were supplied with arms and told to kill the enemy.

"_FIRE!"_

The sound of thuds and cursing was heard as the rounds hit their targets. No one wanted to be on the opposite team when he was the leader, they always lost.

Mostly because his grandfather cheerfully showed him how to snipe targets at a distance. He could kill and gut a rabbit in five minutes flat.

"TIME!" yelled the adult watching the exercise. Once again Hawk got the highest kill count. They only let him join this game because they needed an extra.

"Winner is the red team!" yelled the Teacher.

Hawk slung his paintball gun around his shoulder after unloading it.

"Way to go Jamie!" said his friend Paul.

"The undisputed champion of the mock battles!" cheered the red team.

Jamie had, from the first time he had participated in the mock battles with paint ball guns and markers in place of knives, beaten anyone he came across. This was because every time he played he always took a spot that was damn near impossible to see and sniped everyone on the opposite teams. And he was always assigned green, so he tended to have a higher kill count than everyone else.

"So you signing up for Cabin boy again?" asked Jake.

"Yup! Grandpa said that if I want something I have to earn the cash for it. Something about not turning out like our neighbors," said Jamie.

Jamie had many stories about the neighborhood bully Dudley Dursley. He never tried anything with Jamie around because every time he tried, even when he had his gang, he always ended up with his ass kicked and a pair of black eyes.

Petunia would have complained, but Charlie always shut up the two blowhards by pointing out his grandson was attending a better school and did his service to Queen and Country, whereas Dudley's highest ambition was to merely join his father's company.

Vernon never did like having that pointed out. He tried to get Dudley into the same military academy Jamie attending, but less than a month in, and Dudley was kicked out. Charlie even tried to keep the boy in, since he was of the opinion that the boy needed a firm hand in order to avoid being the waste of space he already was.

"So where did they say they were heading this summer?" asked Jake.

"Hawaii. I love being on those big ships, even if I do have to keep the others in line," said Jamie.

Jamie signed up every year for cabin boy duty in the Queen's Navy. He got paid minimum wage, had to work on the ship doing the worst jobs, and was at sea for two months. Because he had done it so many times, he was Senior Cabin Boy. It was a summer program designed to give the cadets a chance to see what life was really like working in the military.

Jamie would rather be working in the Royal Air Force for the summer, but those slots were only available for age fifteen and up, and those kids had to have a good record in the Navy first.

He was already a shoo-in for one of the slots.

Jamie looked up when he saw the owls flying above.

"Looks like it's that time of year again... Why anyone would use messenger owls is beyond me," he said.

"The owls coming again? Where do they even go?" asked Paulie.

"Can't tell ya...it's part of a simple trick to weed out the unworthy," said Jamie.

"You know where they go?"

"Followed them a couple years ago to this small building full of them. Ever since I've been stuck going to extra classes," said Jamie, making a face.

Classes like mundane-born orientation, Laws and by-laws of the Ministry, and Gringotts money-management. He still had no idea what his instructors meant when they said it would come in handy once he turned eleven.

"Come to think of it, I have a class in thirty. See you later Paulie!" said Jamie, placing his paintball gun inside the cabinet. They weren't allowed to use them outside of training exercises, seeing as how some of the boys still needed to grow up.

* * *

"Potter, James!" called out the drill sergeant.

"Here!"

"You got three letters. Scotland, Ireland and an affiliate branch over in America. You get a one-week leave for home in order to discuss this with your guardian. Here is the address to the Alley that will explain everything for you, I would advise you to check it out," said the sergeant.

"Yes sir!"

"So they sent the letters. Well, lets get into the car then, no point putting this off," said Charlie.

"Huh?"

"Your instructors gave me a call the day you found the Owlery. Said that the letters had a good chance of coming when you hit eleven, so I had best be prepared. Some of them seemed a mite disappointed that I didn't react like the others had."

"Didn't you work with some people who could do odd things during the war?" asked Jamie, getting into the car.

"Captain Longbottom and Private First class Bones. Friendliest people with powers I ever met. Strange folk though...kept using these polished sticks to get most of their work done. And don't get me started on the things they wrote with..."

An hour's drive later, and they were in London.

Thankfully the note also included directions to the stores next to this...Leaky Cauldron.

"Cauldron, eh? I heard about that place from Longbottom. Supposedly has the best roast with onions and potatoes this side of Hogsmeade, wherever that is. He always tried to get me to join him and Bones for a pint, but I never had time," said Charlie.

Charlie parked his car at the Veteran's Association, which is where he went for his monthly meetings with old friends. Jamie was well acquainted with the place, having learned how to fight from a few of the members. He got his first knife from one of Charlie's old platoon.

Coincidentally it was three blocks from the Leaky Cauldron. Charlie was surprised to be able to see it, considering he had never gone with Longbottom or Bones for a pint before.

This was the beginning of a _long_ series of surprises for that day.

First was the warning they got about the strange scar on Jamie's head. One of the other veteran's lent him a baseball cap to cover it, saying the poor boy would be mobbed otherwise.

Then there was the mob _Charlie _got when someone recognized him. The thing was, Charlie had no idea who the man was.

Finally, the two had enough and went straight to Gringotts.

And there things too a turn for the bizarre.

"It can't be Charles Potter!" said one of the squat creatures behind the tellers.

"Hmm? What's it to you stranger? And why is everyone making a fuss about me today?"

The creature swore in goblin before directing them to an office. But word had already begun to spread that the grandfather of Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, was alive.

"Charles Potter. By all rights you should be dead after that attack," said the goblin bluntly.

"Why the hell is everyone making a fuss about me being alive?!"

"First we need to confirm it really is you before we do anything. Can you come over to this other room so we can get this over with?"

"Will I get an explanation as to what the bloody hell is going on?"

"After the test."

A few drops later, and Charlie was sitting in the chair nursing a massive headache.

"First things first, what do you remember of the year 1978?"

"Aside from enlisting in the Royal Air Force after some Colonel found me wandering the side of the road, not much. He dropped me off at the nearest Air base where they patched me up and I took them on the offer to enlist. I was a gunner in one of the planes before a lucky shot took us down and I became a sniper until I retired over a decade ago."

"First off, you are a veteran of the Second World War. You used to pilot one of the planes before a lucky hit got you and you decided to help on the magical side. You were missing, presumed dead after a Death Eater raid that destroyed your small town house and left your wife dead. We assumed you had been killed as well," said the goblin.

"I knew I was a fighter pilot in the war! Because of my fear of planes, they allowed me to become a sniper instead."

"Now who is the boy you brought with you?"

Jamie removed his cap, and the goblin swore.

"I applaud you common sense. Had the people in the Cauldron seen you, you would have been mobbed for sure. Ever since Dumbledore claims to have left you with your muggle relatives, people have been awaiting your return."

"Hold on a moment. Would these relatives be Petunia and Vernon Dursley?"

"I would assume so, why?"

"Can I have an appointment with this...Dumbledore? I want to have _words_ with him about leaving an infant on a doorstep in the beginning of a cold November," growled Charlie.

"...Mind if we do it where the goblins can get a good view? Dumbledore has mishandled the Potter funds, and we would like to see the old goat get what's due to him."

Charlie gave a shark-like grin in return.

"Now, about my grandson's schooling..."

* * *

In the end they decided on Hogwarts, though it was with the agreement that Jamie would be allowed to change schools if he felt that Hogwarts wasn't up to their standards. Plus there was the fact he had already signed up for the two month stint on a British airship carrier as usual. Which meant arrangements had to be made so that he could catch up once that was over and transport to the school.

As far as Dumbledore was concerned, the school which Jamie attended didn't end until then.

First thing Charlie did was load up on any books he thought of use, occasionally calling his friends in the VA for advice.

Once they learned that he was magical, they had all sorts of tips for him, some not so friendly.

That sort of advice Charlie always took with stride, because as he always explained to his friends, he was still loyal to his wife.

At least now he had her name. Because of the head injury he took, all he could remember of it was that it started with a D and her maiden name was Black.

Before they left the Alley, Charlie did make a final pit stop in Gringotts for the name of his grandson's godfather. Any child of the Potter family had one, and he had the feeling Jamie was no exception.

They left that day nursing a headache and with a new pet. Jamie didn't particularly like owls, as he had to help clean out the Owlry at his school, but he was partial to snakes and dogs. Unfortunately they didn't allow exotic pets like that.

However Charlie knew his grandson, and he had little doubt that the boy would find a way to sneak his German Shepard puppy into that school.

He chuckled...that would prove entertaining.


	2. Chapter 2

Albus Dumbledore was a man of many things, but superstitious was not one of them. When he heard rumors that Charlus Potter had returned, he had assumed they meant as a ghost of some sort.

So it was with great surprise that he came face-to-face with a very much alive Charlus Potter standing next to a goblin.

'If he's here, then where is the child people spoke of next to him?' thought Dumbledore. He had heard rumors that Charlus had brought with him.

"So. You are Albus Dumbledore," said Charlus.

Unseen by Dumbledore, there were a great many goblins who were there to see what happened next.

Charlus pulled back his left arm, and broke the man's nose.

Needless to say that memory would be a favorite of many goblins.

"I've been meaning to do that since I saw you and that woman leave that poor child on that doorstep ten years ago," said Charlus satisfactorily.

The goblin beside him chuckled darkly.

"I had heard you were dead. James had been inconsolable when news of the attack came," he said calmly, trying to staunch the flow of blood.

"I was found and enlisted with the Queen's sniper division. As it stands, if I hear you put your sticky fingers in the family vault again, I won't stop with just a broken nose," said Charlus.

"And what of the child?" asked Dumbledore.

"Safe at school. My grandson has done me proud as a fine Englishman," said Charlus.

Dumbledore would leave Gringotts feeling as if something horrible had happened to his plans for young Harry.

Not only was the boy's grandfather alive and well, but he had legal custody of the boy. To make matters worse, there was nothing he could do to legally gain custody.

* * *

"So you finally got a dog Jamie? Lucky!"

"German Shepard. Grandpa said he'd get a friend of his to help me train him how to be a dog like the ones the military uses. Once it stops weaning anyway. I should be able to get it once we return from Hawaii."

"Lucky. So what's this about you transferring schools?"

"You know those weird owls that keep showing up around the end of June? Turns out they were delivering school applications and Grandpa said I could join one. I picked one that is in Highland Scotland," said Jamie.

"Ugh...colder weather than we get here. I don't envy you one bit," said Paulie.

"Bah. At least he managed to convince them not to butt in on the yearly summer programs. They think I'm still at school," grinned Jamie.

Paulie chortled with him.

* * *

"So why are we supposed to listen to this runt?" said a brutish American boy who somehow managed to get approval for this trip. Jamie suspected his parents paid a donation to the school.

"One, because I happen to be Senior Cabin boy and I am trusted to do as told. Two, I have been through this program five times already, so by rights I am _your _senior. Now, are there any intelligent questions? Don't be shy, I don't mind answering them. If you have any trouble you can always ask me or the First Mate."

One raised their hand.

"Do we get paid?"

"We do get paid for this trip, but only if the Captain agrees to sign the check. Anyone caught lollygagging or goofing off when they are supposed to be on duty will have their pay cut or withheld until further notice. Now, since most of us are minors, we only get the bare minimum of what everyone else on the ship gets, and we won't be ranked higher than Cabin boy, who gets the lowest amount of all the others. If, however you do well enough to rank Senior cabin boy like me in a few years, then you will earn ten pounds more at the end of the month."

Another raised their hand.

"Yes, Jacob."

"What sort of jobs are we supposed to do on the ship?"

"Mostly cleaning, though laundry thankfully isn't going to be part of our duties. Those of you who know your way around engineering are permitted to join them in engine maintenance. Those of you able to cook _edible_ foods may help prepare meals, and if any of you are daring you can learn medicine from the ship's doctor. This is, after all, a training program and to allow everyone a chance to get a good feel of what life is like on the ship."

Another raised their hand, looking rather confused.

"Why aren't their any slots available for the air or land divisions?"

"The reason is that we are already learning the land divisions at school, and the air division is for those who not only have high enough grades, but have the approval of both headmaster and the quartermaster. It is a privilege to earn a chance at one of the slots, not a guarantee," said Jamie.

"How long are we going to be at sea?"

"Until we hit our destination this year, which is Hawaii. Every year the captain picks a tropical destination as the main goal for this program. Once we return however, they set sail and do their duty as part of the Queen's Navy. Consider yourselves lucky that we are in a school that even allows minors to work on a naval ship over the summer rather than do nothing all summer. Plus, once we hit Hawaii, we are more or less unsupervised...unless you manage to piss off the captain and the crew in which case you might be confined to ship instead of chaperoned to shore."

A thought occurred to him.

"Also, all forms of liquor are banned to minors, and if caught you will be stuck doing laundry duty for two weeks."

"I thought you said laundry wasn't part of our job description?" sneered the American.

"It's not, but it _is_ a punishment duty for anyone who breaks the rules or causes too much trouble. Now, you have all been assigned bunks, but please, anyone with nightmares do us all a favor and sleep on the bottom."

With that, Jamie lead them to the room that was designated for cabin boys, taking one of the bottom bunks himself. He learned from experience that as much fun as it was to have top bunk, falling off mid asleep was much less painful if you had the bottom, and he tended to toss and turn a bit.

* * *

"Johnson! What do you call this...mess?" demanded Jamie. Johnson had been getting on his nerves since day one, and he had about had it with the American.

"I call it an overflowing toilet, _sir,_" said Johnson with a sneer.

"You are on toilet duty this week, and yet I've received complaints about the cleanliness. Now either you shape up, or I will have the First Mate assign laundry for a month!"

"Like I care. You're just a jumped up brat who thinks he can order us about," sneered Johnson.

"Johnson, you have exactly _one_ hour to clean this mess up, before I call the First Mate in here."

Jamie sighed when he found Johnson ten minutes later, reading a dirty magazine in the shared room.

* * *

"Sir, one of the cabin boys is refusing to do his cleaning duty and answer to orders. Nothing I've done seems to help, and I was hoping you could have a word with him?" said Jamie.

"There's always a smart-ass in the group," sighed the First Mate.

"It's the American, sir," said Jamie.

"I had a feeling it was him. How long has this been going on?"

"About a week sir. I had hoped to resolve this without bringing it to your attention, but..."

"I'll take care of it, the only reason he was brought on was because his parents hoped a few months at sea would straighten him out."

"I'll go inspect the others while you deal with Johnson, sir."

"Good lad. I heard next year you might be cleared for the slot in the Royal Air Force."

Jamie beamed at him and headed out.

Later he heard over dinner that Johnson had been given laundry duty for the rest of the trip unless his attitude improved. Jamie paid little mind to it, aside from the fact that one of the beds was now unoccupied, since Johnson had been placed with one of the more...rigid...sailors. Apparently they had found liquor in his things.

Since it was no longer his problem, he could care less.

* * *

Johnson cornered him in one of the lesser used corridors.

"You! Thanks to you I'm stuck with that hard ass for the rest of the trip!"

"I did nothing. You were the one who refused to do your job and brought liquor on the ship. Had you done what you were told, you would still be with the other boys and allowed on shore," said Jamie calmly.

Johnson roared and tried to tackle Jamie. Jamie side-stepped him before he chopped the boy in the stomach that had him curling up in pain.

"You alright Jamie?" asked one of the sailors.

"Fine. Can we leave him in the brig until his attitude improves?"

"Depends," said Mike, grinning.

"On what?"

"On whether the Captain sends him packing for 'attacking a senior officer'," said Mike.

"Huh?"

"As senior cabin boy, you outrank the others. By attacking you, he attacked a higher ranked officer of the ship. I'd love to see how this idiot manages to get out of punishment for this," said Mike. He barely resisted the urge to kick the brat.

* * *

A few days later Jamie ran into Johnson in the brig.

Johnson glared at him, but kept his mouth shut. He was already in a great deal of trouble for attacking Jamie.

"Now, are you going to be reasonable from now on, or would you rather stay here until we return to Britain?"

Johnson glare at him deepened. Jamie sighed and left. There was little chance of him getting through to the boy anytime soon. However he kept at it for the next month, until they hit Hawaii.

Each time, Johnson said nothing, but his glare was pretty clear. He hated Jamie deeply.

Finally Mike told Jamie to just give up.

"That kid has some serious issues. I don't think someone like you would be able to get through to him right now. He just doesn't respect someone your age."

"I had hoped we could at least part on amicable terms, but if I can't get through to him..."

"I'll send Johnny to talk to him. Maybe he can get through to the kid."

* * *

Jamie stood before the others with a grin.

"Well boys, after a long,grueling month of nothing but sea and storms I am proud to announce that our destination is in sight. Gentlemen, Hawaii is off the starboard bow and the navigator has told me we should be landing within two hours. Get your things ready gents, our week of sun and fun begins soon!"

The others cheered loudly. This is what they had suffered for, an entire week of nothing but fun without any parents to complain about what they bought.

Best of all, the captain was going to give them all credit cards with their paychecks on it, already activated with the pins on the back.

They had five hundred on each card, though Jamie had six because he was the senior cabin boy. Practically every boy had swim trunks on under their pants. The older sailors chuckled at their enthusiasm.

Mike had been elected chaperone so that they didn't try to enter any bars or cause trouble. Aside from that they could do whatever they wanted to.

Once the ship was docked and put away, the boys were off the thing as fast as you could blink.

* * *

"You know it's a real pity Derrick couldn't join us. I heard he's never seen Hawaii before and he was really looking forward to this," said Brent. He was friends with the American.

"Yeah, but he shouldn't have attacked Jamie like that. It's not like the kid ever did anything to him," said Fred.

"Yeah, but I heard that in his last school, some younger kid lied and said he had bullied him, when he was the real culprit. And I heard his parents kept trying to pin the blame on him. It was either the Academy or juvie," said Brent.

Jamie, who heard that remark, paused in his game.

"Did he saw what the kid's name was or what he looked like?" he asked. The description sounded far too familiar.

"Some punk named Dudley Dursley."

Jamie face-palmed. He should have guessed that fat pig was the cause of this mess.

"Hang on a second...I need to go see Johnson...I mean Derrick."

"What do you want now brat?" growled Johnson. He was miserable because he could see Hawaii outside and wasn't allowed to go.

"I heard an interesting tale earlier about you and another idiot named Dudley. Did he happen to look like a fat pig in a wig?"

"You know that arrogant little ass wipe?!" snarled Derrick.

"I not only know that little punk, I live across the street from him. How the hell did you come across him?"

"I came across him bullying some little girl and beat the crap out of him. Next thing I knew, his parents had pressed charges on me and I had to join the Academy or get sent to juvie."

"Would it help if I said I can't stand that horse faced bint or her walrus-shaped husband? And that we have been trying to get them arrested for multiple charges, but for some reason they have never sticked?"

"What do you want?"

"How about a truce. If you can behave until the end of this trip and quit causing me trouble, I'll see about letting you out of the brig so you can at least join the others. Also, I'll give you heads up on burritos and beans day in the mess hall."

Burritos and Beans day was the one day all cabin boys feared, because whoever was stuck with toilet duty had to clean up the resulting mess.

"If I behave, do you think you can help me teach that brat a lesson once we get back?"

"You mean prank the hell out of that little shit? Definitely."

"You have a deal, Potter."

The next day Johnson was let out of the brig, and was on his best behavior. However because of the trouble he caused before, he wasn't given a card.

In the hopes of keeping the peace, Jamie shared half of his pay with the boy, and soon the two had a tentative friendship.

It wasn't perfect, and Johnson still smarted back, but the agreement to give a certain blond back in England what he was due did wonders for the truce they had.


	3. Chapter 3

The Captain stood before the cabin boys, and looked at Jamie proudly for getting the one who had been sent to the brig back to standards.

"Now boys, I am proud to say that as of this moment, we are within sight of England. I am particularly pleased that Mr. Johnson has managed to behave long enough to join us outside the brig, his earlier behavior completely unacceptable. I would like to thank Mr. Potter for helping Mr. Johnson to rethink his earlier actions."

"It helped, sir, that I knew the perpetrator of his initial offense that forced him to join the Academy."

"Quite. Gentlemen, as per our regulations, you will help run up the British flag now that we are within sight of home. Once we have docked, you will pick up the cabin and join your families who are eagerly awaiting your arrival."

It took them little time to raise the flag, with Jamie's careful instructions.

Once they were within sight of land, the cabin boys cheered.

* * *

Jamie greeted his grandfather with a hug.

"Good to see you again boy. And who's this?"

"This is Derrick Johnson, an American. Apparently Dudley is up to his old tricks again. He framed Derrick for one of his stunts."

"Sounds like that braggart. I don't know why the coppers haven't arrested and thrown him into juvie yet."

"It's too bad that punk isn't in the military, otherwise we could throw him in the brig," said Derrick.

"He got thrown out," said Jamie sourly.

"By the way Jamie, the woman sent a letter saying that the puppy is ready for you to take home."

"I just had a thought... doesn't Petunia hate animals?"

"She's an OCD nutjob," Charlie confirmed.

"Then what if we got Dudley some animal and convinced him it was the newest fad among our age group? Either he shapes up and quits hurting people or we make their lives hell."

"What would you suggest?" asked Derrick, liking the sound of that idea.

"Labradors. They have a ton of energy and their tails can wreak havoc."

"You mean like in that book _Marley and Me_?" asked Derrick.

"Exactly!"

Derrick grinned evilly.

* * *

Petunia's life had become hell...ever since Dudley had gotten it in his head that dogs were currently the most 'hip' thing, he had demanded one. Finally Vernon went out and got him a Labrador puppy that had become the bane of her clean existence.

The thing was loud, messy and was completely uncontrollable. It chewed everything in the house, it refused their commands, and it barked all night long.

Dudley never took into account his mother loathed animals, Vernon had no patience to speak of, and he was gone most of the year. Which left her holding the plastic bag and scrub brush as she had to clean after the damn thing.

It didn't help that the boy across the street had just gotten a German Shepard puppy and within a week it was perfectly behaved. Sure, there were a few accidents, but otherwise it was a good dog.

She hated the brat for getting the idea of a dog into her son's head with every fiber of her being.

* * *

Derrick watched the Dursley family and their new personal hell with glee. It served them right for being horrible parents.

"So how long are you going to make them suffer?" he asked Charlie.

"I'm going to make them stick with the dog until Christmas, by which time I'll call Animal Control to pick it up, if they don't get rid of it first."

"Where's Jamie?"

"He and Scruffy went to their new school already. The only reason he wasn't there earlier was because he had already signed up for the trip."

"It was good meeting you, sir," said Derrick.

"Tell you what, I'll write you a letter of recommendation so if you ever want to join the military you can have a slightly easier time."

Derrick saluted the man with a grin.

* * *

"Welcome to Hogwarts Mr. Potter. I can assume you are here to join us?" said Dumbledore.

"Sorry it took me so long. Had to fill out transfer papers for my last school."

"Excellent! Now we need to sort you and you can start catching up tomorrow. Fortunately we haven't gotten into any in-depth work since it has been only a week," said Dumbledore.

He handed the boy the hat, which Jamie put on. Fortunately his new dog Scruffy was still sleeping off a good steak in the expanded trunk.

_**Hmm...not a bad mind, loyal and brave...and extremely cunning. Why you would fit into any house really. However, what stands in the forefront is your pride in your grandfather. There is only one choice I can go with that dedication...**_

"Hufflepuff!"

Dumbledore hid his disappointment...at least he didn't go to Slytherin.

"Excellent! I shall call Professor Sprout in so she can introduce you to your new housemates."

"Welcome to Hufflepuff Mr. Potter! I hope you feel right at home!" said Sprout. Inside she was cheering. Now she could rub this in McGonagall's face!

Jamie grinned. He already liked the place, because it was the house of the loyal and hardworking, two things he excelled at. He enjoyed Academy life, which wasn't easy for some, and he was a steadfast friend to those who earned it.

Once he entered, he waited for Sprout to introduce him before he grinned.

"Yo," he said, giving a two fingered salute.

The response was immediate.

"WE GOT POTTER!"

"Now Jamie, I'm sure your dorm mates can help you catch up. Fortunately you only missed two weeks of school," said Sprout.

"Uh, just a warning, but I might miss two weeks again next year. My last school had this training program and they allow former students to join up so long as they kept up their studies abroad," said Jamie hesitantly.

"Well that shouldn't be much of a problem, so long as you follow the rules and catch up every year."

"Yes ma'am," said Jamie.

Right after she left, someone heard barking.

"Does anyone else hear a dog?"

"Crap! Scruffy must have woken up!"

"Scruffy?" said one of the older students.

"My new German Shepard. Grandpa's in no condition to handle a puppy, let alone train him, so I brought him with me."

"You do realize that dogs aren't allowed in school right?" asked the prefect.

"Yeah, but last I checked the groundskeeper has one. And I'm sure I'm not the only one with an unusual pet in this school."

"Good point. So long as you keep it under control and potty train it, I don't see there being a problem," admitted the prefect.

Percy originally had a rat, and word had it that the youngest brother had it now. And rats weren't on the list of approved pets.

"Besides, it would be nice to see something other than a cat, toad or owl in the house."

* * *

Jamie initial thought about Hogwarts was that it was far too childish for his tastes. The children were very out of shape, the food was fatty, almost unhealthily so, and there were no extracurricular.

Thankfully he had to run with his new puppy Scruffy around the grounds for exercise each day.

The first to take notice of the dog was one of the adults..

"What is that thing doing in this school?!" shrieked Filch.

"I have the approval of my head of house, and so long as I train him and clean up his mess, no one has a problem with him being here. He won't be your problem to deal with, sir," said Jamie politely.

"Keep him away from Mrs. Norris!" said Filch. He wasn't used to one of the students showing him actual respect.

"I shall be sure to train him not to attack cats, sir," said Jamie.

"See that you do," said Filch. He was so unsettled by the encounter that he didn't harass Jamie again on his runs.

* * *

With Filch's unofficial approval of the dog, there was little the other houses could do. The fact was that Jamie was actually training him in his spare time, and kept him in his trunk during classes (he had quickly potty trained his new dog so it would hold until he got there) so the puppy wouldn't make a mess of the dorm room.

The next person to have a run in with Jamie and Scruffy was none other than the groundskeeper, Hagrid.

He was more interested in how Jamie trained the dog rather than it's presence in the school. Apparently Fang had a habit of jumping on people. The two soon shared a common bond as Jamie helped Hagrid train the boarhound in basic commands.

In scholastic work, Jamie was in the top ten. Even with his late start. There was only one real hitch in that.

The potions professor hated his birth father.

"Ah yes, Mr. Potter...our new celebrity."

"Sir, if I may, I greatly disagree with what the books claim about me and I wouldn't know how to handle fame. My entire schooling has been in military academies, so any ego from an act I had no part in would have been beaten out of me pretty quickly."

"You think you know everything, don't you Potter," spat Snape.

Jamie didn't start, as most of his acquaintances did around him, but rather stared right back at Snape calmly. Even Granger, the bookworm, jumped when he hissed.

"Sir, I do not understand your grudge against me, as this is the first time we have ever met. And to be honest, the drill sergeant back at my old school would put you to shame when it comes to making people scared. I am only in here to learn potions, not start an intellectual debate."

Snape glared at him a little longer, but eventually he conceded defeat. This wasn't James Potter's son, but Charlus Potter's grandson. He heard rumors on his yearly potions run that the man had survived, but he hadn't believed them.

After seeing the boy's memories, however, he realized that any attempts to antagonize him would only end badly...for him. Charlus had never condoned bullying.

* * *

_Meanwhile, outside Hogwarts..._

Charlie had it with the pitying looks he kept getting from these wizards, so he went to this St. Mungo's place to see if he could get something to jog his memory.

Because of the unique state of his injury, he was sent to the long-term ward where the healers found a potion that should help.

It was there that he found a familiar pair of faces.

Captain Frank Longbottom and Private First class Alice Longbottom. The best navigator and nurse he had the pleasure of knowing.

Charlie looked at the nurse (Healer) and asked "What they in for?"

"Long-term Crucio exposure. So far nothing done has been any help whatsoever."

"Crucio? What the hell is that?"

The Healer looked at him flatly.

"Crucio is the most painful torturing curse around, and it's labeled as one of the Unforgiveables for a reason."

Charlie took a long look at the two, and for some reason the look in their eyes reminded him of something. It wasn't until a few days later at one of his VA meetings that he realized what.

Frank and Alice had a magical form of PTSD. A pretty bad case if they haven't come out of it.

"Hey, you guys remember Ol' Frank Longbottom?" said Charlie.

"Frank? I remember him. Good kid."

"What happened?" asked George. He had been under the command of the kid, even though he was older than him.

"I ran into him at St. Mungo's. According to the nurses, Frank and Alice were tortured for hours. From what I can tell they both have a pretty bad case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and keep reliving the event."

That got their attention.

"What did you have in mind Charlie? You wouldn't bring this up unless you have a plan," said Hughes.

"I think we should kidnap them and bring them among friends. Being in that hospital isn't doing them any good, but maybe being given a reminder of life before the incident might bring them back."

"It's so crazy it just might work! Hell, it helped Danny boy when he came back from 'Nam when his own kids wanted to ship him off to a nursing home!" said old Harry, slamming his drink down.

"So gents, what do you say to a little kidnapping?" said Charlie, a glint in his eye.

"Aye!"

* * *

Neville was about to start eating his breakfast when he caught the headline of the _Prophet _that morning.

_**BREAK-IN AT ST. MUNGO'S. TWO PATIENTS MISSING!**_

_**In an astounding series of events, earlier this morning Healer Pynes confirmed that two patients of the Long-Term Spell Damage ward were missing from their beds. Three hours of searching revealed that neither of the two patients, a Frank and Alice Longbottom, were in the hospital. The Longbottoms, as many can recall, were the last victims of the Lestrange trio. The two were tortured for five hours via the Cruiciatus curse until Aurors arrived to arrest the Lestranges.**_

_**The Auror department has sworn to find the Longbottoms and return them safely to their family, and to give the harshest punishment possible if they were taken by force.**_

Jamie took one look at the name, and his head fell to the table with a thud.

He remembered his grandfather telling him about Frank Longbottom, and had a pretty good idea of what had happened. A quick letter to Charlie revealed what he had already suspected.

The VA had taken the Longbottoms. Why, he had no idea but he planned to find out for Neville's sake.

It had been two months since he started school, and Jamie could honestly say...he disliked it.

The children were too noisy, the classes were a joke, and the prejudice... In short he really didn't want to come back.

However his grandfather sweetened the deal by informing him of the base that he had 'purchased' that was a decommissioned Royal Air Force strip that had seen better days.

Part of the rehabilitation that Charlie had in mind was good old fashioned hard work putting it back into use. Some of the hangers were refitting so that those suffering flashbacks of wars (like Vietnam for instance) could get the old urges out of them by attacking and 'killing' dolls that had been made to act much like a human body would.

In this case it was filled with ballistics gel and some blood packs.

The one in the flashback could stalk and 'kill' the fake humans and in doing so hopefully bring him to the present slowly.

And, in an effort to spend more time with Jamie, Charlie had convinced the Academy to send some cadets over to help out. Including those hoping to get a slot working with the Royal Air Force during the summer.

From what Charlie said, it seemed to be working. Frank and Alice had already started to show improvement by simply recognizing where they were. They even remembered faces now.

Too bad Jamie couldn't tell Neville the good news for fear that his grandmother would come after Charlie.


	4. Chapter 4

Jamie was halfway to Herbology when he heard it. Someone being bullied.

Naturally he took offense to this and immediately went to set the bully straight.

It was Ron Weasly...and he was harassing poor Neville about lending him his homework notes.

Jamie saw red and knocked the boy on his ass with a well placed sweep of the legs. Then he dragged Neville with him to Herbology.

"How long has this been going on?" he demanded.

Neville whimpered, but said "Ever since the start of term."

"Neville, you don't have to put up with that. I'm sure we can convince Professor Sprout to let you stay in our dorms if Ron is going to harass you like that."

"But Gran..."

"I don't _care_ about what your Grandmother wants. She's not here right now, you are. And besides, I've been meaning to tell you that your parents are fine in private anyway."

"You know where they are?" said Neville, a hopeful look in his eyes.

"Not only are they okay, but they are in the process of coming back. They were taken by old friends to see if they could do what your healers couldn't, which was bring them back."

"Can I tell Gran?" asked Neville.

"Not until we're sure that it will remain permanent. Anyway, we need to get you settled into Hufflepuff. At least there you won't be bullied by your own dorm mates," said Jamie.

Neville nodded cautiously. Jamie was by far kinder than the rough and tumble boys of Gryffindor.

* * *

It was the news of the school that one of the Gryffindor firsties had switched houses. And it started a real problem.

Neville wasn't the only one to jump ship, so to speak. He was quickly followed by Hermione Granger and one Blaise Zabini, who went to Ravenclaw.

Dumbledore was less than pleased by this, while McGongall and Snape tried to convince the children to go back to their original houses.

They had no luck. Hermione and Neville were much happier in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, and Blaise said he was happy to have an intelligent conversation without having to worry about his view on blood status every half an hour.

And when Jamie accidentally found a by-law in the school charter that said a student could change houses if they felt the sorting was mistaken within their first year...

Dumbledore no longer had a leg to stand on.

The sad fact was that the students were much happier in other houses.

* * *

When Jamie learned Neville had been using Frank's old wand, he convinced the boy to get a new one and waited until Christmas to give Frank his back. Professor Sprout saw no reason not to help the poor boy out when she learned the real problem.

And once he had a new one, his grades shot up. Augusta was less than happy to hear from Sprout that it was her fault Neville had been having so much trouble.

She was more unhappy to hear that her grandson had such a hard time in Gryffindor, which lead to some pointed questions to McGonagall as to why she had allowed such rampant bullying.

Needless to say Ron was in a great deal of hot water for a few months, and even the twins showed some common sense by toning down their pranks.

Though that could have also been because of Jamie's discreet word to them a few days after he rescued Neville from Ron. He ever offered them a deal where they could work for some extra galleons during the summer. They could still develop new pranks, but they would have to do it during the free time they got for what Jamie had in mind.

It was his way of getting them into shape, because while he wasn't a big prankster, he did notice that the twins tried their best never to cross the line to far between bullying and joking. They seemed to trust Jamie's judgment on pranks when it came to playing them, and soon the line was no longer in danger of being crossed.

Snape was not one to look a chance and not take it, as he had Jamie stay behind one day after class and offered him a deal. He would join the boy on his morning runs and not complain about the dog in the school (thereby ending all worries that Scruffy would be sent home by Dumbledore) in exchange for keeping the twins away from him when he was brewing something delicate.

It worked out to a point, though Snape had to bite his comments back whenever Jamie slowed down so his professor could keep up. At least the boy was more tolerable than his father had been.

It wasn't until Halloween that he found out how true that was...

* * *

Jamie was late in getting to the feast due to some extra homework he had from his old school. He didn't want to give up his regular schooling just because he was in a new one and learning magic. He would need a High School degree just to get into the Royal Air Force.

It was the stench that told him something was wrong. He was close to the kitchens (most of the firsties had to go a little trial of sorts to find it, since their dorms were right next to it) and he knew something was very wrong.

He ran to the portrait with the pear and tickled it until the doorknob opened (he had bribed the Weasly twins with galleons for how to get in) and ran inside.

He was just in time, as a mountain troll walked past that corridor.

"Little Master! Yous should not be in here!" said one of the house elves.

"There's a troll outside, and I was leaving the common room. This was closer than the door," said Jamie.

"Just don't goes sneaking out any sweets. There's plenty of those on the tables," said the head elf.

"I'm not that big a fan of sweets anyway. Do you have any Granny Smith apples instead? Not candied, mind you, but plain?"

The head elf smiled and someone brought him a bowl of the apples. That was how the teachers found him when one of the prefects alerted the teachers to the fact he wasn't with the others while the troll was on the loose.

* * *

"THERE WAS A WHAT LOOSE IN THE SCHOOL?!" shouted Charlie when he read the letter.

He reread it four times before he got up furious.

"What's got yer britches in a bunch Charlie?" asked Hank.

"Troll, in a school full of children," said Charlie, like every word he wanted to use could curse the idiot responsible.

The potion had worked, and had restored most of his lost memories. He had lost James, Lily and his wife Dorea. He also remembered a certain boy, Dorea's favorite grandson Sirius.

The same Sirius that everyone in the Cauldron cursed blue about for betraying Lily and James.

Which was why Charles had visited the prison personally and learned the man was in fact innocent. No way could Sirius had betrayed James when he was the godfather of James' son.

Charlie was now trying to give Sirius a trial, claiming that he wanted to at least hear his end of the tale by the traitor's lips and to insure the Queen's law was carried out.

Most people brushed it off as one of Charlus' little eccentricities after being in the muggle world so long. Still, they were willing to humor him as the head of the Potter family and the grandfather of _Harry Potter._

Now, though, now Charlie was pissed. Trolls were notoriously violent and occasionally ate human flesh. Especially mountain trolls.

At least Jamie had enough common sense to stay in the kitchens until someone came for him.

* * *

"You staying for Christmas Jamie?" asked Neville. He considered Jamie his best friend.

"Grandpa said if I came home, we'd be spending time in that base they're trying to fix up," said Jamie.

"...Is it possible for me to join you?" asked Neville. He didn't want to spend time with his overbearing grandmother.

"I'll ask Grandpa. Chances are he'll say yes when he hears who's son you are," said Jamie grinning.

A day later he got confirmation. Neville could join Jamie on the ride to the base. His grandmother even agreed to it, assuming Neville would be spending the holiday with Jamie in the Potter mansion.

* * *

"Welcome to Gryffin Air Field. Mind your step boys, we're still trying to get the roads fixed, and it's slow going," said Charlie.

"It's a pleasure to meet you sir," said Neville.

"Always good to see a lad with manners. You can just call me Charlie if you like lad, formality isn't something we're big on around here."

Neville nodded, already out of his league.

"Most of the people here are former Hufflepuffs and the better half of the Gryffindors. Occasionally a Ravenclaw or the rare mundane-born Slytherin, but mostly Puffs," said Jamie quietly.

That cheered Neville up a bit. Then he caught a glimpse of someone very familiar walking past with a bag of compost.

"Dad?" he whispered.

"I have an idea, why don't you help Ol' Frank plant our first crop of vegetable seeds?" said Charlie kindly.

Neville brightened up and ran after his father.

"So how is condition, really?"

"He still has trouble remembering faces or conversations, but the two of them are a great deal better off than they were originally. They can do simple tasks and last week Alice successfully brewed a minor sleeping draught. Maybe having their son around will speed things up a little."

Jamie grinned.

"Which reminds me... You should check out hanger three. We recently got the same kind of plane I was shot down in," said Charlie.

"Yes sir!"

* * *

"Sirius Black, we are here to day to confirm what we already know," said Fudge bored. Charlie had promised ten thousand galleons in exchange for a trial.

Considering all he had to do was declared Black guilty all over again and waste an hour of his time, it was easy money.

Or so he believed.

"Did you betray the location of the Potter family to Voldemort?" asked Bones.

"_No,"_ said Sirius, under the veritaserum potion. He had all but demanded it when brought in.

"Are you, or have you ever been a Death Eater?" demanded Bones.

"_No. I hated Voldemort and all he stood for."_

"Someone check his arms!" barked Charlie. It was a well known fact that Death Eaters had a certain mark tattooed on their arms.

One of the Aurors came down and checked both arms. They were bare of any marks.

"If you didn't betray the Potters, who did?!" said Fudge.

"_Peter did,"_ spat Sirius. It was clear that Pettigrew was going to be a taboo subject for him.

"Why did you allow people to believe you had betrayed your best friend and his wife?" asked Charlie.

"_I had snapped because I realized I had just lost everyone I cared about. Peter was supposed to protect them and actually do something right for once in his miserable life, and instead he chose to betray us all. We should have gone with Remus instead,"_ said Sirius, his shoulders drooping.

"I think we can all agree that a great miscarriage of justice has occurred here," said Charlie.

"Indeed. All in favor of clearing all charges?" said Bones.

Nearly everyone raised their hands. Only a few didn't, among them Fudge, Umbridge and a few Death Eaters.

"Very well. Let the records show that Sirius Black is hereby cleared of all charges against him for betraying the Potters, and shall be reimbursed for time spent illegally in Azkaban. Now I believe Lord Potter has something he wishes to say to Lord Black?" said Bones.

"Aye, I have something to say. Because of the effects of the Dementors had on his mental state, I would recommend that Lord Black stay with me at my current residence until he is fit to rejoin the rest of the magical communities as a whole," said Charlie.

"Do you oppose this Lord Black?" asked Bones.

"No, I don't," said Sirius. Mostly because he knew that joining Charlie also meant spending time with his godson.

* * *

"MERRY CHRISTMAS!" said the entire VA association of London.

"Cheers!" said Sirius, holding up a bottle of butterbeer. He had gotten several cases of it so the boys wouldn't accidentally get drunk with real liquor.

"So Neville, how did you like spending the past week with your dad and mom?"

"They're...more alert than I'm used to. Mom even said my name, like she recognized me," said Neville.

"I would have brought your Gran here as well, but the last thing they need is coddling," said Charlie.

Neville actually agreed with that. The past week he had spent here was the best he ever had. Here they didn't question whether or not he could do something, but rather showed him how if he didn't know. They trusted him more than his grandmother ever did.

Plus there was the fact that they were slowly but surely bringing his parents back.

Neville drank his butterbeer with a big smile on his face.

Frank and Alice were doing much better without being stuck in that dreary hospital and doing nothing. Giving them tasks and having them do exercises seemed to bring them back to themselves.

They were even starting to remember who they were.

And it wasn't just helping Frank and Alice. Some of the older veterans and even some of the young blood were benefiting too. Those coming home from foreign wars that suffered from PTSD took to the little hanger like ducks to water. Their flashbacks seemed to be coming less and less often since they were able to get it out of their system. Not to mention being able to talk to others who suffered similar problems and understood them.

There was even word that it was going to be re-commissioned under the authority of the Veteran's Association since it gave the old soldiers something to do.

"To Charlie! For bringing us back!" said Hank.

"Charlie!" roared the others. The sound of clinking glasses was all that could be heard.

"And to Jamie, who started it all!"

"Jamie!" cheered the others. The boy blushed, but he grinned.

Christmas was spent with a lot of cheer and fun. Plus Neville finally got a chance to try out his new paintball gun that Jamie got him.


	5. Chapter 5

"How was your Christmas Ms. Granger?" asked Jamie.

"It was excellent since I left Gryffindor Jamie, thank you for asking," said Hermione. She liked him because he was so polite to her, even before the change.

In fact it was thanks to him that she was finally _enjoying_ her school years. Being away from people like Ron Weasly had done wonders. She could actually have a proper debate now.

"How was your break Jamie?"

"It was great. We even brought Neville with us and he had a lot of fun for once."

"I'm glad for him. Ever since his parents were taken, he seemed so depressed. Now he actually seems happy again," said Hermione.

"It was less of a kidnapping and more of a rescue."

"Hmm?" said Hermione.

"Nothing," said Jamie.

* * *

Less than a month of returning, Jamie was confronted by Ron.

Ron had taken his house placement pretty hard, since he fully believed Jamie would be a lion like him. And ever since the boy had festered a deep hatred of Jamie Potter and those around him. It didn't help that he was the most popular boy of the first years and that he had gotten two lions to leave and become a badger and a raven respectively.

Of course it didn't help that Ron had been caught bullying the other first years because of Jamie. Now his parents were threatening a summer of chores and no fun.

"YOU!" he growled.

"What do you want Mr. Weasly?" asked Jamie patiently. He had an idea of how this would end, and it wasn't going to be pleasant. Not for Ron anyway.

Charlie had already talked to Arthur and Molly about letting the twins work at the base over the summer to earn some spending money, and if Ron continued he would be roped into it as well. Percy was already talking with some of the older veterans about getting into an opening with the muggle Prime Minister as an intern.

Charlie had convinced the boy to try for his high school degree, because as he pointed out, the Ministry of Magic only worked with a small amount of people, whereas the Prime Minister helped with nearly the entire country. Plus the average Ministry worker didn't make nearly as much as someone did in the muggle half.

Not to mention it made him much more tolerable to deal with.

Ron growled before he charged at Jamie. Jamie didn't react until the last second, when he knocked out Ron with a single blow. The boy was overweight, brutish and was extremely lazy. His greatest ambition was to be a professional Quidditch player, which he apparently believed didn't require good grades.

Personally Jamie felt the boy would do better as a professional chess champion, if what he heard about the boy's ability to play was correct. Jamie glanced at Ron's prone form and an idea occurred to him.

Perhaps Ron could benefit from a summer in the same program he loved, where he got to see other countries and the sea for two months.

Plus it would give this spoiled brat some structure which he desperately needed.

Molly Weasly was a nice woman, but she coddled her children too much. Which was why she was unsure about this idea to send Ron out to sea for two months in order to calm him down. Arthur, however, had no such concerns and felt it would do Ron good to see the world and to grow up a little. Besides, it once was custom to send sons to sea in order for them to make their own names among the purebloods.

It was the reason why so few had complained about Jamie being sent to a Military Academy at such a young age.

* * *

"Hmm? The third corridor? Why should I care what's in there?" asked Jamie.

"But there's a Cerberus in there! Why don't you want to know what it's guarding?" asked Hermione.

"By any chance is it a girl?" asked Jamie carefully. He had been wondering why Scruffy was acting odd these last few days.

"How should I know? I was more interested in their heads!" said Hermione.

"...Wait right here," said Jamie.

An hour later he returned looking rather...odd.

"Well?"

"I need to go talk to Hagrid for a moment. You shouldn't come."

"Why?"

"You don't want to know, trust me," said Jamie.

* * *

"What can I do fer you Jamie?"

"Hagrid, do you by any chance know the owner of a Cerberus on the third floor?"

"He's mine. I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the... Never you mind!"

"I could care less about what he has you guarding. I am more concerned with the fact that my dog may or may not have gotten your...Fluffy...pregnant."

"What now?" said Hagrid.

"Long story short, your Cerberus is in fact_ female_, not male as you seem to believe and has recently gone into heat. For some reason Scruffy was with Neville when Draco tricked them into a duel, and since he is old enough...well," said Jamie, looking embarrassed.

"Fluffy is a girl?"

"Dogs like me, and since Scruffy has been acting oddly I took notice. It wasn't until Hermione mentioned a dog on the third floor that I went to look. Fluffy is female, and she was displaying all the signs of a dog in heat," said Jamie embarrassed.

"What signs?"

Jamie's face was flaming red as he told Hagrid what to look for. Apparently the groundskeeper never had female dogs before.

Needless to say a month later when 'Fluffy' began to show signs of puppies, Hagrid was very surprised. Jamie, however, was more mortified than surprised.

On the plus side, Hagrid did promise to give one of the pups to Jamie, who was still very embarrassed about the whole situation.

* * *

"So Potter, you still not interested in joining the reserve team?" asked Cedric.

"Not even a bit. I have too much on my plate doing magic homework as well as mundane. Besides, I get my exercise done the old fashioned way with Scruffy."

"True. But you are the best flier in the first years. Plus you have a focus none of the other kids have in this school."

"It helps when you're used to drill sergeants yelling at you whenever you screw up," said Jamie.

"Is that how you deal with Snape?" asked Cedric surprised.

"Believe me, he's nothing to my last instructor," said Jamie.

"How bad was he?"

"He tended to yell at us if we went too slowly while running, or didn't do push ups like we were taught. And don't get me started on gun maintenance..." winced Jamie. That was one of the few things the man didn't yell at him for, because his grandfather had him taking care of the guns before he was ever allowed to shoot them.

"You know I've been meaning to ask...why has Neville's attitude taken a 180 since he came back?"

"Not my place to explain...besides I don't want the aurors after my grandfather."

"What he do?" asked Cedric grinning.

"Rescued the Longbottoms from living a life of complete boredom and is helping them return to normal."

"How the hell he manage that?" asked Cedric stumped.

"As it turns out, both of them used to serve with my grandfather, and when he went to regain his lost memory from before the attack on the mansion, he spotted them and later convinced his old war buddies to help him 'rescue' the Longbottoms. They had the two doing old exercises and talking about the good old days and they two slowly started to come out of their shell. Apparently they were suffering a magical form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder."

"What's that?" asked Cedric.

"Basically they were stuck relieving the Lestrange attack and were unable to break free of the trauma. It's fairly common in veterans who have been in situations that involve life and death. Like those poor sods who went to fight in Vietnam, they sometimes have memories of those jungles come to the forefront and suffer horrific flashbacks of friends dying."

"Really?" said Cedric. That sounded horrible.

"Some of those people can't lead normal lives, but Grandpa opened up an old base and recreated some of those scenarios so those guys could get it out of their system. It really seems to be working."

"So about that reserve spot..." said Cedric.

"Maybe another year. Right now my plate is too full. Once I get settled into a routine that works, then we'll talk," said Jamie.

In reality Quidditch didn't excite him as much as free running, parkour or football. But he wasn't going to tell a die hard fan that to his face.

* * *

"So the Cerberus in the third floor is guarding something created by Nicholas Flamel," said Jamie. For some reason Hermione seemed dead set on knowing what was being held there, even though Jamie had little interest. His interests lay in exploring, not treasure hunting.

Besides the minute she said 'Nicholas Flamel', he had a good idea what was there. What Hermione failed to realize was that she was looking in the wrong places for Flamel, who was so famous that Jamie had heard of him before he had found the Owlry at his old Academy.

Besides, he was a _Full Metal Alchemist_ addict. He had all the books and the entire series in his room.

"Why aren't you more interested?!" she asked.

Jamie was more curious as to when she started hanging around him and why. Aside from a love of books, the two had relatively little to nothing in common.

"Possibly because I already have an idea of what's in there, and even if someone did steal it, I know for a fact that they won't keep it for long."

"You already know what's down there?!"

"You said Nicholas Flamel, right? There is only one thing I know of that he had a hand in that everyone wants," explained Jamie.

Hermione's mouth opened and closed.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Philosopher's stone. The Sage's Stone. The Ultimate Amplifier. It goes by many names, but it all ends with the same thing. Tears and blood. That stone is more trouble than it's worth."

"How do you know about that?" asked Hermione.

Jamie dug into his bag for his secret addiction.

"_Full Metal Alchemist_? Isn't that a kid thing?" she asked.

"...Hermione, do you even _read_ fiction or do you just dive into science?"

"I don't believe in that hogwash," she said tartly.

Jamie inwardly sighed. Here was indisputable proof that Hermione would never get along with him as a girlfriend. Not that he had ever entertained any ideas in that direction. She was just too stiff.

"Right. Anyway all that's down there is a stone that is nothing but trouble," said Jamie firmly.

* * *

It was after the finals that Jamie ran into trouble. He was on his way to the kitchens for a healthy snack when he ran right into Professor Quirrel.

The man looked harried like he had done something wrong. Jamie grabbed his hand to help his teacher up with Quirrel started screaming like the damned.

Jamie dropped his hand and saw it crumble beneath his fingers. Quirrel suddenly snarled and grabbed Jamie, who did a basic over the shoulder throw. Quirrel's screams grew as his body turned to ashes.

Something fell out of his pocket and Jamie almost ran. Instead he picked it up and put it in his pocket before he ran like hell.

When he heard heavy footsteps coming his way, he judged the distance between floors. He jumped and managed to grab a railing. Thanks to his upper body strength he was able to pull himself up to the landing and hid behind a pillar.

Once his breathing was down to reasonable levels, he continued on to his way to the kitchens for a snack.

As far as he was concerned, that never happened.

* * *

Jamie was understandably horrified when he finally looked at what he picked up.

It was a blood red stone that almost resembled a ruby, except it didn't look like any rubies he had ever seen. The first thing he could thing of was the fact that this was the same amplifier that the Elric brothers had so desperately sought to set things right.

The next thought was that this was a 'lost and/or stolen' item, meaning he had to return it to it's proper owner. Unfortunately it was too valuable to send by mail, which meant that he would have to take a trip to France in the summer.

Jamie immediately shoved the stone into the same bag as his manga collection (oh, the irony) and forgot all about it.

The best defense against any questions about something he wasn't supposed to have was to forget any knowledge about it. It would drop more suspicions than a shielded mind ever would.

* * *

"Why do you want to go to France?" asked Sirius. He was proud his godson had managed to help break the Slytherin stranglehold on the House Cup, and still confused why his godson was a Puff.

"I have something that belongs to Nickolas Flamel that is too dangerous to send through an owl or mundane means. And I already sent him a letter from the base asking for his address," said Jamie.

"And why didn't you ask your Grandpa?"

"Because he's stuck with another group of PTSD sufferers who haven't gotten used to the re-enactment phase of treatment. They tend to be a little...dangerous...until they get used to the new routine. It's the same reason why Neville isn't here at the moment."

"Well, it gives me an excuse to corrupt your innocent mind..." said Sirius.

"Did I forget to mention Frank and Alice would be joining us?"

"Damn."

"And no portkeys. We're taking a plane, because I don't want to be sick to my stomach when we meet Mr. Flamel at that cafe."


	6. Chapter 6

Nickolas Flamel was many things. An alchemist, a sorcerer...a manga addict. So it came as no surprise to those that actually knew him (even if it was by a fake name) that he immediately zoomed in on the one child in the French cafe looking like a black short haired Edward Elric.

"Hello Jamie. You are Jamie, correct?" said Nickolas grinning. He was an avid fan of _Full Metal Alchemist_. So few were willing to print the true way to create a stone for everyone to read. Then again the goblins never read mundane comics, so it was understandable.

"Depends. What is the primary law of Equivalent Exchange?" asked the boy calmly. When he learned Nickolas Flamel was a total FMA fan, he knew he had the perfect way to determine if it was him or not.

"To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs kid. What does the phrase All is one and One is all mean?"

"Life is an endless circle of death and rebirth. To try and bring life that was lost is not only against the laws of nature but against that of alchemy as a whole," said Jamie immediately, before countering "What is inscribed inside Elric's pocketwatch?"

"Never Forget, followed by the date of when they burned down their house so that they would have nothing to go back to," said Nickolas.

"Good to meet you Mr. Flemming. Always fun to chat with a fellow fan," grinned Jamie, shaking his hand.

"The same to you, Mr. Potter. Your owl said you have something of mine?"

Jamie reached into his pocket, checked for observers, before dropping it into Flamel's open hand.

"Please tell me this isn't what I think it is," said Flamel.

"It's not mine, and grandfather taught me that all lost or stolen articles are to be returned to their rightful owners. Picked it off a thief who for some reason burned when I tried to help him up."

"I lent this fake to Albus so he would quit badgering me about the damn stone. I didn't think he would be stupid enough to allow an actual thief to make off with it," said Flamel irritated. That was the reason he dropped the boy months after taking him on. Fool never thought things through.

"I recognized it from the series, knew it to be too dangerous to return via post."

"This is actually a replica, much like the one in Liore," said Flamel.

"Really? That one worked rather well for a construct made primarily of red water."

"Care to join me and my wife for a cup of tea and discuss the series? I hear they're coming out with a new movie later this year."

"_The Stone of Shambala_. I heard it's supposed to be rather good, and they finally solve that issue about Wrath and Gluttony."

"Don't forget Hohenhiem!" chirped Nickolas. It really was a delight to talk to another avid fan of the series. His wife didn't care for it much, preferring the _Inuyasha_ and _Sailor Moon_ instead. They both agreed _Dragonball Z_ had taken a turn for the worst of late.

* * *

Sirius couldn't help but feel this was the most unusual conversation of his life...and promptly swore to try out some of the books his godson had stored in his trunk.

This was later reinforced when said godson introduced him to a series some of the upper years recommended when he hit puberty and girls started to look a lot more interesting.

He would later be banned from the internet until he could stop watching hentai for five hours straight each day...for a week. It was later turned into a month when being stuck without anything to occupy his time for nearly ten years had put a crimp in his social life.

Finally, Sirius was knocked out cold, thrown on the same boat as Ron and a few others (Neville, with his grandmother's permission) and forced to stay at sea until his libido quit directing his every action.

He only went along with it because the captain mentioned a topless beach in Tahiti that he planned to take them this year.

* * *

"More tea Jamie?"

"No thank you Mrs. Flamel. Your home is absolutely lovely," said Jamie politely.

Part of his pre-Academy lessons happened to be on etiquette and manners. His grandfather had been rather...stern about that, saying he didn't want his grandson to be a worthless blob like the Dursley boy.

"So tell me Jamie, what exactly do you plan on doing once you leave Hogwarts?" asked Perenelle.

"I plan on either joining the Royal Air Force or the Sniper division. Those who manage to get into one of the coveted spots have a chance to join almost immediately once they hit their majority. A copy of years in and I can get my own plane," said Jamie proudly.

"Going to follow your granddad's footsteps, eh?" said Sirius knowingly.

"Grandfather said that there is no greater service than the Queen or Country, unless it's to your fellow man," said Jamie.

"Good lad!" said Nickolas.

"It's so nice to see a lad who has his priorities straight and isn't afraid of hard work, isn't that right Nickolas?" said Perenelle, giving her husband a Look.

Which prompted a familiar argument between the two, one that had no bite to it but kept things interesting...right up until Jamie offered to clean the gutters for no charge. A quick change of gloves and removal of his coat and jacket and he quickly went to work.

Within an hour they were clear and the things in there were in the trash. How half that stuff got up there, he did _not_ want to know.

Nickolas was so impressed with his work ethic that he offered him an apprenticeship.

"Unfortunately sir, my summers are packed and I don't see Dumbledore allowing it. Is it possible for me to get back to you on that once my hormones are settled down enough not to risk it?"

Rather than be offended, Nickolas beamed at him. It was so rare to see a responsible boy like Jamie.

"Come see me when you're in your thirties then. In the meantime, would you object to the odd owl or two? My wife isn't a big fan of _Full Metal Alchemist_, and it would be nice to have someone to debate with," he asked.

"Not at all!" said Jamie grinning.

Behind them, Perenelle sighed with relief. Now her husband had someone else to natter about that show with.

* * *

Jamie spent a good portion of summer fixing the engines of old planes. His grandfather had opened up some spots for the Academy to send those who wanted into the Royal Air Force, but were unable to make the initial cut due to limited openings.

Jamie decided to stay on base, as it meant he would be spending more time with his grandfather.

To his delight, Fred and George took Charlie up on his offer and were given a crash course in military life. They were invaluable when one of the re-enactments of the jungle went out of control and the poor sod managed to get out of the hanger which some idiot left unlocked.

Magical fireworks could be very distracting if used properly. Seeing a dragon made of flames shooting towards you, for example.

Because of that, they were able to stun the man and put him in a padded cell until he was able to come out of it. It was their standard procedure.

They had another for the really bad cases where they were too far gone.

They put them through a few re-enactments, just to be sure, then they knocked them out, remove the memories of the events, and kept a very close eye for an entire month. Usually that did the trick, and they were deemed fit for society again, at least in small doses.

If that didn't work, then the SOP was to put the poor fool out of their misery. Quick, clean, and the patient was given a soldier's burial...depending on what branch they were in. For those in the Queen's Navy, they were given the standard sea burial.

It was something everyone who came here to heal from the trauma agreed on. Better to be put out of their misery by a friend and comrade than by a cop trying to protect the innocent from them.

Fortunately, they had yet to go that far, but it was always an option. For now it seemed removing the memories in question and showing the poor sod how bad their condition had been after worked better than any medication.

"So Jamie, have you heard from any of your friends?"

"Only Nick for some reason. Then again, he has e-mail instead of owls," said Jamie. It was rather odd really, but he hadn't thought much on it.

"I heard we're getting a special visitor next week. Apparently word has spread among the nobles about the base and our near perfect recovery rate for soldiers," said Charlie.

It was only near perfect because there was only one person who had managed to get through the trauma and live a civilian life at the moment. Everyone else was still in recovery.

"Any idea who?"

"Some noble or other," said Charlie dismissively.

Oh, he had an idea of who it was, because he had gotten word from the Prime Minister. Luckily security wasn't a real issue, what with the base being off limits to civilians without trusted escorts.

Not that anyone would want to come to such an out of the way base in the first place. Still, it would be fun to see his grandson's momentary panic when he learned the Queen herself was coming to congratulate Charlie for helping heal his fellow veterans.

It was somewhat required in order to get any funding from the Crown, seeing as how he had been paying for all of this from the family vault and several donations from other veterans.

The two went back to fixing the engine, only taking a break for food and a nap.

* * *

"Soldiers, line up and fall in!" barked Charlie. As the 'owner' of the base, he was considered the one in charge. Even if there were several who outranked him, including three former generals and a Colonel.

Here, they were patients trying to readjust to civvie life. No one stood on ceremony here unless it was needed to bring people back in line, and Charlie had made a point to insure safety to those going into the hanger for some release.

Out of those doing the re-enacting, only those from the same platoon at the time of the flashback were allowed in with the patient. If no one was available, then only the patient was allowed in until they were either done or knocked out.

The last thing they wanted was for someone to walk in there during a re-enactment and killed by accident. It was one of the few areas banned to everyone but those suffering flashbacks, because you could never tell when someone was in there or not.

They had an observation deck that was impossible to break into, but that was for insurance purposes.

Every soldier on base lined up in a familiar row as the plane rolled down the tarmac. The second everyone realized what the symbol on the side of the plane was, several of them panicked slightly. The others straightened even more.

Jamie, Fred, George, Percy (he was there because they had internet and people to teach him basic high school subjects), and several of Jamie's old friends from the Academy couldn't help their gape.

It was the bloody Queen of England!

Thankfully for Jamie and the others, they didn't have to see her until near the end of the visit. That gave them time to get over the shock that the QUEEN had come to their little base/rehabilitation area.

They were relaxing in the common area where some of the younger patients tended to congregate when they had free time. It had internet (no porn sites allowed unless you were in your own room), satellite TV (channels inappropriate for those under sixteen were blocked), books, a snack bar (free, of course), and all the latest gaming systems.

Jamie had gone into the store personally to furnish it for those who were too young for the bar. About the only thing close to alcoholic in that room was butterbeer.

So naturally his brain did a three-second standstill when the Queen came in.

Seeing Jamie suddenly tense up and go into a proper salute had the boy scrambling to do the same. The civilians more awkwardly than the rest.

"Your Majesty!" said Jamie in surprise.

"It is good to see young men acting so responsibly these days," she said.

"My grandfather has raised me well, Ma'am," said Jamie proudly.

"He has impressed Us with his solution to a growing problem. We shall give him Our full support to heal those who have served Us so well. And We shall watch your careers with great interest," she intoned.

She left after speaking to each boy individually, giving the Weasly's their first look at the Royal Monarchy in their country.

Needless to say Percy was so impressed that he redoubled his efforts to get a position in the muggle world.

There was little doubt that the Queen of England herself was more respectable than the so called Minister of Magic.

* * *

"WHAT! You meet the Queen herself?!" shrieked Hermione.

Jamie had wisely held the phone away from his ear when he told her.

"Yes. She came to inspect the base when she heard rumors about what grandfather was doing to help his fellow veterans."

"What was she like?" asked Hermione.

"Impressive, regal...and strong. She really impressed Percy, and now he's working even harder to get an internship in the Prime Minister's office."

"Please tell me he's calmed down from that arrogant attitude from before."

"Just a little. Now that he knows about the big bad world out there, and how far behind he is, he's been hitting the books almost all the time when he's not joining the others for basic exercises."

"Anything has to be better than how he was before."

"True. How goes the summer coarse load?"

"Already finished and notarized," said Hermione primly.

"Same here. I shall see you at Diagon, Ms. Granger," said Jamie.

"See you in Diagon Jamie," said Hermione.

"Now to see how Neville is doing... Here it is," said Jamie.

The phone rang twice before someone picked it up.

"Neville Longbottom available?" asked Jamie.

"Nope. He's busy harvesting some plants off the coast. Kid's really taken to sea life."

"Hey Mike! How's Ron then? He finally quite acting like a brat?"

"Hey Jamie! Yeah, once he got it through his head that we were just paying him to clean, he was allowed to leave the brig. Kid was almost as spoiled as that Dudley brat you used to complain about."

"And Sirius?"

"Man had the worst case of blue balls I've ever seen! He's slept with ten women already!"

"Just remind him that if he wants that nice lifestyle to continue he has to earn it," said Jamie.

"He knows. He said he wants to enjoy his last taste of freedom before he enlists for real. Can't say I blame the man for that," chortled Mike.

"Well just call if he causes too much trouble and we'll straighten him out next time you hit port," said Jamie.

"Will do little man. Have fun at the base," said Mike.


	7. Chapter 7

Jamie had just come out of the shower when he saw the bat-earred creature wearing what appeared to be a pillow slip. Aside from what appeared to be the worst case of hero worship he had ever seen and a rather bad case of masochism (at least he hoped that was what it was...the other option would have made him much more blood thirsty) it was rather intelligent.

He did feel sorry for Dobby though, which was why he promptly dragged the poor thing to the medical bay to be treated, despite several attempts to leave.

Apparently he wasn't used to people actually _caring_ about his injuries.

Still, he did get his missing mail (some from Neville, among others) so it wasn't a total loss.

And he was keeping his promise to Dobby that the great 'Harry Potter' wouldn't be attending Hogwarts this year.

No one told the poor creature that he went by Jamie, and had been since primary school.

So Jamie got ready for another year at Hogwarts, once again loading up Scruffy into his modified dog house built inside Jamie's trunk.

Sprout had given him special permission to keep the dog, seeing as how it never attacked students and was house trained.

Neville had his own pass too, since Jamie had given him Dudley's Labrador for his birthday. Petunia had been so relieved to be rid of the animal that she even paid for the carrier and up-to-date shots.

Jamie was going to help Neville train it properly, since the Dursley's had allowed it to get some bad habits. Like jumping on people...

The dog had been renamed Marley after the book Jamie gave the boy for Christmas (along with a mundane gardening catalog with an order form for seeds).

Jamie's eyes went up when he found a familiar name on one of the envelopes.

He honestly had no idea Derrick knew about magic.

Well, at least now they had things to talk about other than military life.

He noticed that Derrick even included his e-mail address, and promptly wrote a letter to him explaining about the odd elf that showed up in the barracks.

* * *

_**IamNOTaSquid would like to chat.**_

_**RAF_or_BUST: **_**Hello Derrick. I had no idea you knew about magic too!**

_**IamNOTaSquid:**_** yeah, sorry I couldn't say anything. But then again, you never mentioned you were Harry Potter either.**

_**RAF_or_Bust:**_** I haven't gone by that name since my parents were alive. Grandpa called me James when I was old enough to understand, so everyone I know called me Jamie.**

_**IamNOTaSquid:**_** makes sense, after all your middle name is James.**

_**RAF_or_Bust: **_**so what have you been up to?**

_**IamNOTaSquid:**_** been bored, actually. After all that trouble on the ship, the academy has been boring me to tears. Mostly because of this total hard-ass who seems to think that I didn't get into enough trouble when my parents learned about the whole attacking a 'superior' officer incident.**

_**RAF_or_Bust:**_** ouch. Well, maybe Gramps can help. He did open a base to heal PTSD victims. Plus three Pure Bloods are actually learning mundane subjects while earning a bit of cash on the side.**

_**IamNOTaSquid:**_** honestly, working at a base that treats veterans sounds much better than being here. What are the rules?  
**

_**RAF_or_Bust:**_** avoid certain hangers (they treat those suffering flashbacks in there) no alcohol unless it's in the bar, and you have to join the runners at six. Oh, and if you do ****come here, you have to keep up your grades. Percy nearly got sent back because he had trouble with regular homework.**

_**IamNOTaSquid:**_** Percy?**

_**RAF_or_Bust:**_** Weasley. Three of the Weasley family decided to work on the base for a little extra spending money, while their youngest son was shanghaied and dropped off on the ship for the summer. Apparently that was his punishment for nearly getting a girl killed by a troll.**

_**IamNOTaSquid:**_** oh yeah, I've heard of them. Light oriented family aren't they? So do you go to Hogwarts?**

_**RAF_or_Bust: **_**yeah, dead boring though. The only exercise I get is taking Scruffy on runs.**

_**IamNOTaSquid:**_** Sounds worse than Salem. At least there we get to play American Football.**

_**RAF_or_Bust: **_**so what's with the username IamNOTaSquid?**

_**IamNOTaSquid:**_** my uncles thought I was a squib until I got my letter, and since I was really young I always thought they were saying 'squid'. Wasn't till someone figured out what I was really asking that I learned what squib meant. Either way my nickname among my cousins is Squid the Squib.**

Jamie couldn't help his reaction. He started laughing.

_**RAF_or_Bust:**_** that is HILARIOUS!**

_**IamNOTaSquid:**_** laugh it up. So do you think your granddad can help me out?**

_**RAF_or_Bust:**_** I'll go ask him. BRB**

Jamie came back ten minutes later.

_**RAF_or_Bust: **_**he said yes. Since they have teachers here, you can ask to be transferred to Pegasus Air Base instead of the Academy. Just be warned, if someone comes out of the hangers with a paintball gun, don't stand there, run and get help. **

_**IamNOTaSquid:**_** why?**

_**RAF_or_Bust:**_** that means that one of the patients escaped from the hanger again, and most of those people can kill without any weapons. Last time it happened, we had to set off some magical fireworks in order to get them to drop down long enough to stun them. Most of the real weapons are locked up and only known to those who aren't suffering from PTSD, but it's still a security risk.**

_**IamNOTaSquid:**_** thanks for the warning.**

* * *

Jamie took one look at who was in the bookstore, and immediately walked out. He dragged Hermione with him, despite some minor efforts to go in there.

"But Jamie!" whined Hermione.

"No buts. I am not going in there with that fake inside. Besides, I know another magical shopping area where the prices are much lower and where they have a larger book selection."

"How large we talking about. And don't think of lying to me Jamie," she said immediately. Books were her biggest weakness.

Jamie immediately pulled out a catalog that had seen better days. It had several titles circles.

"This is their catalog. And this is from last year."

"Where is it, and take me there now!" growled Hermione.

"Gringotts first, prevention of maiming after," said Jamie quickly. No way was he going to his favorite bookstore without a full pouch of galleons.

* * *

Hermione was on cloud nine. Every book in that store had been triple checked by known experts (except the manga and fiction, but that was acceptable) and they didn't bother with the whole light/dark issue like in Diagon.

She completely ignored the fact that since Jamie brought her, he got a five percent discount on his purchases today.

She soon had over thirty books in her bag, and it was only Jamie dragging her to the counter that kept it from going even larger.

"Why didn't you tell me about this place sooner?" she asked with stars in her eyes. It was kinda freaky to be honest.

"I usually hit this place during summer break and get all my supplies in one go. Besides, this is one of the only magical bookstores that keeps up with the latest manga volumes," shrugged Jamie.

He had stumbled upon it one day by accident while on a field trip and since returning to the magical world had been using the Knight Bus to come back.

Luckily the place allowed Owl Orders.

"Never again," said Jamie, collapsing on his bed.

"Never what?" asked Charlie.

"Book shopping with Granger. That was hell!" said Jamie fervently as he passed out. Charlie walked outside to the dining room of the cauldron...they were staying with the Weasleys for the moment since the boys had been reunited with their parents.

Ron had learned some hard lessons at sea, and was slightly more mature.

Being able to purchase his own wand had done a lot to boost his meager confidence.

Fred and George had grown up slightly as well, though it didn't show. They had also grown five inches from the healthy eating and actual exercise. Still near impossible to tell one from the other though.

Percy had the most dramatic change. He no longer had any body fat showing, he stood much straighter, and to the relief of his siblings, he was less of a pompous windbag. It didn't hurt that he had to have Jamie's help with a lot of the homework he had.

The money sent back by the twins, Percy and Ron had been a boon to the Weasley family. So much so that Arthur was seriously considering letting them go back again.

* * *

Jamie was woken up by an unexpected source.

Marley was licking his face while Neville snickered behind him.

"Low blow Nev, low blow," said Jamie.

Neville looked much healthier than he did last year. All that hard work on the ship did the boy good, as he had lost most of the pudginess. He looked happier too, since his grandmother hadn't been comparing him to his father all the time. Marley was just icing on the cake, as now he had a companion who would actually play with him when he was lonely.

"You might want to get downstairs...Gran's about to geld your grandfather," said Neville amused.

He had accidentally let it slip that Charlie had kidnapped his parents and knew where they were. Augusta had been less than pleased by this news.

Jamie paled, got dressed rather quickly and raced down the stairs.

Charlie was behind a table and hiding from Augusta Longbottom, who had her wand out and looked hex happy.

"DAMMIT POTTER, GET UP HERE AND TAKE YOUR DUE LIKE A MAN!" she shouted.

"NOT WHILE YOU HAVE YOUR WAND OUT! I'M OLD, NOT SENILE WOMAN!" shouted Charlie back. No way in hell was he dealing with an angry woman, he remembered all too clearly what Dorea used to do when he left the seat up!

Jamie had a rather...evil idea.

"Will both of you knock it off! You sound like an old married couple!" he shot down the stairs. He ducked behind the wall as Madame Longbottom shot a stinging hex his way for the comment. Her attention successfully diverted, Charlie made a break for it. He wasn't a fool after all.

He was caught at the last chance for freedom by Augusta who had him hanging from the ceiling by his ankle.

"Dangnabit!"

Charlie didn't like swearing in front of women unless the situation called for it. Hence the baby swear word. Jamie was still upstairs laughing his ass off that his grandfather had been caught.

* * *

Augusta's reunion with her son (more or less healed) and daughter -in-law wasn't a tear jerker.

Her shocked face to find that Frank could actually recognize her and Neville had been worth kidnapping him for.

"We knew what we were doing Augusta. PTSD is a common, but difficult to treat issue. While he doesn't remember the attack, he can't retake his position as an Auror. Not without having a relapse," said Charlie sourly.

"And yet you had them here using force!" she turned at him.

"I said he couldn't be an Auror. Never said a thing about being a soldier again. He can still fight, he just can't use magic to do it without the possibility of the attack coming back. We had to have the memory of the curse and that night removed for him to be able to make this much progress. Alice was the same. They remember everything up to that night, and we've walked them through all the most important changes since then. But under no circumstances are they to be reminded of what happened," said Charlie.

"How? How were you able to heal them?"

"Like I said, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a fairly common issue. It's just a nightmare to treat. The main issue that kept them locked up was that memories of the attack kept coming back, paralyzing them. Being around magic wasn't helping, not one bit. Healers and Medi-Wizards might be good for most magical treatments, but in some cases mundane methods are far more effective," said Charlie bluntly.

"What is PTSD?" asked Augusta, being lead into the main hall.

"PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is when a person is put through a very traumatic, often life-changing event, and is stuck reliving it repeatedly. This is fairly common in soldiers coming home from battlefronts, where they were forced to take lives. Often times it will wake them in the middle of the night and they will see the event replay in their minds. It makes it very difficult for the soldier to reintegrate with civilian society," said a woman behind them.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. My name is Lieutenant Grace. I'm the main medic here at the base," said Grace. She was wearing a normal doctor's coat, and had a stethoscope around her neck. Her hair was cut short, mostly because she didn't want a patient to try and grab it while in the throws of a flashback. On her arm was a wand-holster, which put Augusta at ease, somewhat. Her shoes were sensible and made for walking.

She looked to be around thirty.

"What school did you graduate?" asked Augusta.

"Beauxbatons. When I went to the mundane world to learn muggle medicine, I found a lot of doors closed, despite already having my Medi-Witch license. They claimed they didn't want someone 'infected with muggle ideas' in their hospitals. So when Charlie gave me a chance to practice magic and medicine at the same time...well, I jumped at the offer. Fortunately I specialized in psychology and the mind at school," said Grace easily.

Satisfied with that answer, Augusta turned to Charlie.

"You know if we tag team against the council, we might be able to make it easier to add mundane techniques to our standards," she said.

"It would mostly be you though... Could never stand politics, even when I was still Lord Potter..." he said with a shrug.

"You do realize that you're still Lord Potter, as the eldest member of your house?" she asked.

"How do you think I managed to lock Dumbledore and retrieve all the gold he spent from the vaults? Stupid fool thought he could get away with being a clumsy thief," said Charlie.

Jamie saddled up next to Neville.

"You know at the rate this is going, those two might end up together," said Jamie.

"Gran could use someone to debate with..." said Neville.

"What are you two scheming back there?" said Charlie loudly.

"Nothing!" came the duo responses.


	8. Chapter 8

Jamie felt something was off about the pillar, so he touched it before he backed off.

It was as solid as the real pillars around him. Trying to get through would be pointless.

Because Neville wanted to spend time with Jamie, Charlie had brought both boys to the station the mundane way. He had gone through before them, but Jamie had tested the pillar before trying to go through the illusion.

He reached into his pocket and brought out a well used cell phone. Once he dialed his grandfather's and he picked it up, Jamie explained about the barrier.

Charlie sighed on the other end and told them that they might as well use the Knight Bus, because by the time they figured out how to get through the train would have already left.

Fortunately Jamie was well versed in how to summon the bus on his own, having learned from some of the older veterans who used it to get around. He mostly used it to go to and from his favorite stores, most of which were no where near each other.

"Welcome to the Knight Bus..." started Stan.

"Hey Stan. We need a ride to Hogsmeade, because we've missed the last train to Hogwarts."

"Ten sickles for the both of you," said Stan calmly. He was used to Jamie and his quirks.

Jamie and Neville handed over five coins, and the bus sped off. Neville, who had gotten used to the rocking motion of the waves over the summer, braced himself appropriately next to Jamie, keeping both of them standing up with ease.

* * *

Five minutes later, they were in Hogsmeade. Once they got their trunks off (releasing their dogs) they headed up to the school.

They were met halfway by Hagrid, who was off for a quick pint before the children arrived.

"Hello Hagrid," said Jamie.

"Jamie! Neville! What are you two doin' here?" said Hagrid.

"We missed the last train, and Grandfather said we could take the Knight Bus to Hogsmeade. For some reason the barrier shut off a bit early," said Jamie.

"Well, best get you two ter Professor Sprout then," said Hagrid. They were Puffs, which automatically made this Sprouts problem.

Good thing she was outside pruning some of the plants before school started up again.

"The barrier shut off early? Well at least you made it to the school safely. Now Neville, is this Marley at least house trained?" asked Sprout. She didn't mind dogs, and Jamie had trained his well.

"We're still working on that, but Gran taught me a charm to clean it up quickly. His last owners weren't very good and let him develop some bad habits," said Neville.

"Well, I suppose you can help me prune some of the easier plants. And what about you Jamie?"

"Library raid," said Jamie.

"Off you go then. Remember, if you want to get into the restricted section, be sure to give me a reasonable explanation why," said Sprout cheerfully.

"Yes ma'am!" said Jamie with a salute. And with that he went straight to the library to pick up some reading material before he sat near the lake.

Far easier to read his manga when he was in his own house, where Snape, Filch, or Dumbledore wouldn't feel obligated to try and take it from him.

* * *

"Where were you two?!" demanded Hermione the next morning.

"Barrier closed early, so we had to take an alternate method to the village outside the castle. Professor Sprout cleared us so we stayed out of the way while the teachers got ready for the new year," said Jamie.

Of course half of that day was continuing their attempts to teach Marley the command "Dig" so that Neville could use the dog's stronger leg muscles to clear patches of dirt to plant in.

Marley got the command, it was the location that he had issues with. Fortunately the two were able to cover up their efforts through good old fashioned work.

Neville seemed to thrive under such work, much as Jamie had. It was the main reason he had suggested that Neville go on a trip to sea.

And the results were stunning! Neville finally had confidence in himself and stood tall, but not overly proud!

His gran seemed to pick up on it to, because she no longer despaired seeing her son in Neville.

(Neville even had his own wand, not his fathers.)

"So what's our first class Nev?" asked Jamie.

"Transfiguration."

"Right then. Allonsy!"

"...No more Doctor Who for you," deadpanned Neville.

"Meanie," said Jamie, sticking out his tongue.

"Would you prefer I get Granger hooked on _Ranma ½_?" said Neville.

"Yes! We need another convert to the god of anime and manga!" declare Jamie on the way to Professor McGonagall's class.

Neville shook his head in amusement...though to be fair he had gotten hooked on the genre because of Jamie. He particularly loved the _Silver Diamond_ and _Fruits Basket_ series.

_**(Silver Diamond**_** is one of the lesser known manga series I have a habit of finding and reading. It's about a boy named Rakan who has the power to grow plants simply by touching them and who eventually learns he's from a parallel world were the entire planet is a desert and the sun hasn't been seen in years. His enemy is someone who looks exactly like him called the Prince, who is one of the creatures sucking the life out of the other world. It's actually rather good once you get into it.)**

* * *

"Thank god we didn't have Lockhart today," said Jamie. He had just heard the fiasco of his first lesson, in which the idiot set an entire cage of Cornish Pixies loose on the students with no instructions on how to deal with them.

"I know," said Neville, shuddering. He had little doubt that had they been in that lesson, his recently learned hand to hand moves wouldn't have stopped him from being hung from the ceiling.

(Jamie was going to help him with that, since he was almost a black belt.)

"On the plus side, Professor Sprout said she's letting us join some of the advanced classes since we're so good at plain old hard work!"

Neville cheered up about that.

"Plus she found one of the holes we missed while training Marley and said we could use this as a chance to try again," continued Jamie. Neville almost face-faulted.

* * *

The entire class was dead silent when the thud was heard. Jamie and Neville had been in Defense for exactly five minutes past the bell when Lockhart tried to drag Jamie up for a demonstration.

The second Jamie had a chill go up his spine while Lockhart was behind him, he did a basic over the shoulder throw and knocked the pansy out cold.

Something about Lockhart did NOT sit right with him, and allowing that man to get behind him was probably a very bad idea.

Jamie took a deep breath.

"If this blowhard doesn't get his act together in two weeks, I am calling Grandpa and having him send someone over to give us real training. All in favor?"

"AYE!" came the unanimous cry of the boys and nearly every Ravenclaw in there.

"All opposed?" said Neville.

"Nay!" shouted a good portion of the girls, including Hermione.

"The Ayes have it! Sorry girls, you were outvoted by those who see past his so called good looks," shouted Jamie.

Neville had a brilliant idea and yelled "Class dismissed! Last one out of here is a rotten egg!"

He was the first one out of there, having left his books behind, but taking his bag with him. Most of them followed suit, deciding to finish their homework or do some prep for their next class. By the time Lockhart woke up, he found dozens of his books left behind by the students who never bothered to show up to reclaim them.

* * *

Jamie was driving Snape up the wall with his humming. To make matters worse, Neville quickly realized it was an anime song, so Jamie probably wasn't even paying close attention to his potion.

So it came as surprise when Snape suddenly stumbled and nearly fell into one of the cauldrons from shock.

What could possibly shock Snape of all people?

The song Jamie had been humming was the opening theme to Slayers, and the main character just happened to bear a very uncanny resemblance to Lily Evans nee Potter. Naturally Snape mistook Lina Inverse for Lily Evans, making him wonder when Lily had the time to kill a dragon with a single spell.

He really shouldn't have been reading _Slayers_ before potions class.

* * *

"Seriously? Potter is a major Otaku?" said one of the Ravenclaw boys.

"According to Jamie, he had been reading _Slayers_ before potions and Snape mistook Lina for his mother," laughed the girl.

"...Think he would be interested in our club?"

* * *

Jamie was approached during the 'study hall' which was the unofficial name for DADA this year. Lockhart still couldn't catch any of the errant students who avoided his class like the plague.

"What sort of club are you talking about? Keep in mind my schedule is pretty full," said Jamie.

The Ravenclaw boy handed him a flyer from last year.

Jamie took one look at the picture and said "What time should I show up?"

"Five, right after classes on Friday. Hopefully Dumbledore will let us put on a show this time."

Jamie walked into the room, adjusted his 'cloak' and waited for their reaction.

"Who's the runt?" asked someone.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING A BACTERIA SO SMALL YOU NEED A MICROSCOPE TO SEE IT?!"shouted Jamie in return.

Jamie had been asked to join the Otaku Club, a group of students who loved anime and wanted to recreate the various spells they saw in it. The biggest requirement was that the members show up in cosplay and act in character.

Naturally Jamie grabbed his Edward Elric costume and had to show up in it, hence the chibi comment.

The club roared in approval.

"I would have brought Black Hayate, but he's the wrong breed and I don't have a Hawkeye costume," said Jamie.

"Welcome to the Otaku club!" said Peter, who had been the one to invite Jamie.

"Did you really get Snape to trip by thinking of Lina Inverse during potions?" asked Sarah eagerly.

"He used Legilmency on me and for some reason mistook the Dragon Spooker for my mom," said Jamie with a laugh.

(In the far off distance the sound of absolute rage from that nickname was heard. The Otaku shrugged it off, and silently hoped that if Lina was real she would grace their club.)

"Why didn't you dye your hair blond, or use a wig?" asked Jake.

"Don't you remember that episode Ed turned his hair black to avoid the military?" countered Jamie.

"Yeah, but he wasn't wearing his cloak or usual outfit that episode," said Jake.

"...Give me five minutes," said Jamie.

He left the room before re-entering it wearing a familiar blue and white uniform.

"WHEN I BECOME FURER, ALL FEMALE OFFICERS WILL WEAR MINI SKIRTS!"said Jamie complete with pose.

Everyone in the club cheered for his perfect recreation of the infamous scene. It didn't hurt that he looked like a younger Roy Mustang complete with gloves.

When he snapped his fingers, actual flames came out. The entire club stared.

"I know another fan who actually _knows _how to use alchemy. When I mentioned the costume he happened to send me a pair of the gloves for my birthday," said Jamie with a smirk.

"You are officially the top cosplayer in the club," said Peter reverently. How often did one see a perfect recreation of a character, albeit slightly too young?

Jamie was even give a name badge, which he put on like he would a medal.

"I gotta say Jamie, that Mustang outfit suits you perfectly. Not only do you look like him, but you also have the military background," said Jake.

"I know, but I like Ed's character better because he only used the forbidden alchemy out of love rather than some other reason. Besides, he's funnier and we have the same height issues."

"Only because Ed hasn't hit his growth spurt yet. I hear in the new movie that he finally hits past five feet!" said Mary eagerly.

"NO! I haven't even been able to get a copy because it's on DVD and electronics like those don't work here!" said Jamie with anime tears in his eyes.

"Nice anime tears!" said Peter.

"Thanks. Plus it's done without tear drops," said Jamie, coming out of his funk. For the next three hours he spent chatting with his fellow Otaku. If they were really lucky they would be able to convince Dumbledore to let them put on a show in front of the school.

* * *

"Hey Sir Nicholas. Why are you so glum?" asked Jamie. He was on his way back from the Otaku club (still in costume) when he happened to run into the muttering ghost. (Thankfully not _through_ Nick, as that would have been most unpleasant.)

As Nick explained his problem, Jamie agreed to at least show up to his Death Day party once they got the show they were going to put on at the feast over with.

(Dumbledore agreed because they finally had a script he could agree to.)

Plus it meant he would be able to get something to eat before going there, as most Death Day parties rarely had anything for the living to eat.

(Flamel had been to a few, mostly because he knew the ghost when they were alive. He learned rather quickly to eat beforehand.)

Meanwhile Jamie went to get ready for their re-enactment of the second book of the _Fullmetal Alchemist_ (I'm talking about the written one, not the manga) where Ed is mistaken for Mustang's son and ends up kidnapped.

Dumbledore was allowing them to use one of the armors that lined the hallways (which for some reason bore an uncanny likeness to Alphonse) so they could make it more realistic.

Jamie was lending his Ed costume to one of the blond members (who would be under some charms to look more like the chibi alchemist, complete with fake automail and braid) while he assumed the role of Roy.

The second Flamel heard what they were doing, he immediately went and dusted off his old cauldron and started making a de-aging potion so he could watch the show. His wife shook her head at her husband's antics, but did nothing to stop him.


	9. Chapter 9

Jamie took a drink of his water. It was the final act of their play, and the group had already used the intermission to visit Nicholas. They even told off a group of dullahan who tried to ruin Nicholas' party.

"I must admit, this is a particularly good recreation of _The Abducted Alchemist_," said Nick. He had come disguised as a second year Puff, and with Jamie backing him up, no one questioned it.

"Neville was the perfect Alphonse, and I suit the role of Mustang so well it's scary," grinned Jamie. They had done each chapter of the book in separate pieces so they could allow the actors to rest. Everyone absolutely loved the show, even the pure bloods.

In Jamie's words, it helped that most of the technology was at a level they were already familiar with, except for the phone system.

Plus the main power was something they at least understood at a basic level. Alchemy wasn't a foreign concept to them.

That was probably the only reason Dumbledore had allowed Jamie to use his special gloves.

"_Everyone, the last act is about to begin. Please enjoy the show,"_ said Sarah. She was using a Sonorous charm.

Jamie straightened his hair, slipped on his gloves and downed another potion to perk him up again. Thankfully this was the last act.

Hermione had helped with the illusion spells the others used. In exchange Jamie wouldn't drag her to one of his meetings.

She still blamed him for corrupting poor Neville who finally got to book two and three of _Silver Diamond._ Jamie never told Neville that one of the main characters, Chigusa, was a bit of a pervert with a thing for the Sanome, Rakan. Fortunately there was never any real hint of yaoi in the story, just a bit of an ongoing joke.

The 'building' that housed the 'terrorists' (branch members of the drama club who wanted in on their play) stood like a silent sentinel in the great hall. Everyone enjoyed the show, with several students sharing tables with different houses to make room. The guns weren't real, they were paint ball guns Jamie had loaned the club for the show. They were filled with red paint and anyone 'hit' by a paint ball had to act as if injured.

And to play the act of Gael, the biggest terrorist in the book, they had enlisted the aid of Hagrid.

Considering he rarely got to interact with the students, he was glad to help.

'Ed' ran around the building shouting for the young girl they had meet at the inn. Once he found her and had her hide while he went to play with the terrorists.

The terrorists acted as if their plan was still in act, as a train that looked like the Hogwarts Express barreled in from the distance. It was entirely an illusion, as there wasn't enough room. Jamie had enlisted the aid of the twins for this part, they were the conductors.

Ed raced around the building, sealing everyone in with alchemy. Once Gael left the building to place the logs after a minor scuffle with Ed, the 'scene' shifted to Roy and his crew coming to the rescue.

Jamie ordered like a commander. It was very easy for someone who'd been ordering around other people on a ship every summer. All around them was chaos as the terrorist bombed the other rails, spreading confusion. Using firecrackers worked like a charm.

Susan Bones was acting as Hawk-Eye. She was part of the drama club and Jamie had felt she fit the Lieutenant's personality.

She gunned the 'car' towards the building while Havoc tried to keep up. Only he overshot their 'car' due to superior acceleration.

Neville (in the suit of armor) pushed over the hollow logs as the 'terrorists' returned to their position. Jamie arrived just in time to blow the last 'log' to pieces. Since it was paper maché, no one was harmed.

They walked up to the building, shooting paint balls at the 'terrorists'. Hagrid was waiting for his turn to fight Jamie and Daniel, who was the one playing Ed.

The building looked like some piece of bad modern art from the bottom. Roy paid his compliments to 'Ed' as they climbed to the upper floors. Jamie particularly liked the way Daniel recreated Ed's anger towards short comments. He could hear the audience laughing at Ed's temper tantrum. Even the Slytherins had a good laugh.

Jamie and Daniel faced Hagrid, armed with paintball guns up the wazoo, and dodged the colorful paint. Finally they got him to 'drop' through a hole. Once they faced Snape, who agreed to play the main villain (a homage to the fact he was the most hated teacher there) they had a show down.

Jamie 'killed' Snape using a minor fire spell and they went downstairs.

Neville captured 'Gael' and the audience laughed again when they saw how 'Ed' saved 'Roy' from blowing himself up by mistake.

Finally the lights came back on and everyone cheered.

"_We hope you enjoyed this reenactment of the book **The Abducted Alchemist**_**, **_which is based on the series Full Metal Alchemist. For those interested in the series, please come to the Otaku Club for order forms. Thank you, and have a good night!"_ said Sarah.

Jamie and the others took a bow. As everyone headed towards their dorms they basked in the glory of having recreating one of their favorite books.

It all went downhill the second they found the petrified body of Mrs. Norris and the message on the wall.

* * *

"Poor Filch. Did you see the look on his face when he saw his cat?" said Jamie.

"Who cares?!" said Cedric.

"I do! He might hate the students, but he still loves his cat! How would you like your pet being hurt like that and no one caring?" said Jamie.

"But everyone hates her!" countered the others.

"That doesn't mean we can be a little nicer to him. He's going through a really tough time, and Mrs. Norris is the only one he has who cares about him. And maybe if we are a little nicer to him during this time, he might go easier on the Puffs later!"

Sprout, who over heard that comment, agreed wholeheartedly.

"A little kindness goes a long way," she said wisely.

"What can we do to help though?" said Cedric. He didn't like it, but he would go along with it for now.

"Well how about the little things, like helping him out? A few cleaning charms and avoid making more work for him. I'll get his schedule later so none of us are out in the halls after hours."

"I'll give you the schedule," said Sprout.

* * *

"What's that shirt you have Jamie?" asked Neville one morning.

"Read the slogan on the front. Trust me, you'll laugh."

"_Don't let your rank interfere with my authority_?" he read.

"I saw this in a shop that caters to military spouses," Jamie explained. Neville got the joke and started laughing.

"So how did the play do? I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow."

"Great, and we've been getting a _ton_ of new converts. So much so that we had to make a branch club for the light Otaku so they wouldn't feel so out of place with us Hard core otaku."

"What about the book we based it on?"

"Sold out at the bookstore we use for owl orders," smirked Jamie Ravenclaws had been the first to hit their club for order forms, next to the Slytherins.

Apparently they liked being able to identify with the characters.

"Wonder how they would react to _Sailor Moon_ or Ranma ½?" said Neville.

"I'd be more interested in the look on Snape's face if we did _Slayers_ next year."

"By the way...do you have book four of _Silver Diamond_?"

"Like the storyline, eh?" said Jamie knowingly. Neville was a huge fan of plants, and people who used them in attacks.

Neville nodded, but he was blushing. Chigusa was rather...amusing, if a bit embarrassing with his perverted innuendo.

"Tell you what, I'll lend you some of my _Katana_, _Flame of Recca,_ and _Pokémon Adventures_," said Jamie.

"Don't forget the lesser known ones like _Shitsurakuen!_" piped Peter.

"I liked the premise, didn't like the way they treated the girls," said Jamie flatly. No way was he exposing Neville to that series.

"What about _Escaflowne_ or the Gundam series?"

"I'd rather expose him to ones like Tenchi Muyo or Digimon. He's still an innocent, remember?" said Jamie.

"I'm right here you know."

"That reminds me! They recently developed a tape player that will work in high magic areas!"

"Tell me more!" said Jamie.

"I have three words. Total Anime Night."

"Finally! I can catch up on FMA and the others!"

"And we can corrupt even more to the god of anime and manga," said Peter with a smirk.

Jamie grinned. He paused and said hello to Filch, who was still guarding the spot.

* * *

"A dueling club? Sounds interesting, but I don't want it to interfere with my real club," said Jamie.

"It's during the weekend," said Neville.

"Yeah, but who's running it? If it's Flitwick I'll go, but if it someone else count me out," said Jamie.

He asked around, and the second he heard who had started it, he warned everyone who was serious about learning Defense to avoid it.

Even with Snape there, having Lockhart run a defense club was bound to be a joke.

Some of the boys went to see the show, as Lockhart was bound to make a fool of himself.

Jamie among them.

Jamie deftly caught the wand that flew in the air, before he gave Snape a thumbs up. Most of the boys were actually cheering for the potions professor, rather than Lockhart.

The sad fact was that at least Snape taught them something, even if he was a condescending ass. Lockhart couldn't do that much.

"Draco! Jamie! Why don't you come up here for a demonstration?" suggested Lockhart.

"Why don't you learn to teach?" countered Jamie.

Lockhart attempted to drag Jamie up, but the boy neatly broke his wrist.

"I don't like being forced someplace by people I don't know or respect," he said coldly.

Snape gave him an approving look as he quickly singled out two other students. A Ravenclaw and another Slytherin.

Jamie handed over Lockhart's wand to Snape.

"I thought your grandfather instilled a sense of right and wrong. Shouldn't you return this to it's owner?" asked Snape, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, but our drill instructors always said to do our best to keep weapons out of the hands of idiots who are more likely to hurt themselves with them," said Jamie with a straight face.

Snape couldn't help his reaction to that statement, he started laughing. Several students wondered what Jamie did to get him to laugh, or if he just hit the man with a giggling hex.

"I have to share that one in the staff lounge," said Snape, when he came back under control.

* * *

"How did you do it? How did you get Snape to laugh like that?!" asked Cedric.

Everyone had heard Jamie got Snape to laugh without a spell.

"I told him that I gave him Lockhart's wand because I was trained to keep weapons out of the hands of idiots," replied Jamie with a straight face.

That got a good laugh out of the boys, and some angry huffs from the girls. Sprout, however, was laughing with them. Snape had retold the joke Jamie had said to him earlier that week. Needless to say the other teachers got a good laugh out of it...except Lockhart who looked offended.

Jamie started humming the tune called 'Brothers', which was based on the FMA series and eventually adapted to the soundtracks. He finished the last of his homework and went on a run with Scruffy. The training with Marley had been difficult, but the end result was that he no longer jumped on people, made a mess indoors, and could now dig a deep hole on command.

That trick had pleased Sprout greatly, as it meant less time spent on replanting certain flora.

Or, as Jamie had joked the Neville later, less time digging a grave for those who annoyed the boy. Neville had punched him in the shoulder for that comment.

He was halfway to the outside when he heard the voice again. Another student had ended up in the Hospital Wing a week earlier. No one knew what he was doing out of the common room at that hour, though some suspected he was going to the kitchens on the other side of the castle.

The teachers let him outside mostly because he had Scruffy, who was a trained attack dog. Anything stupid enough to try and hurt Jamie would have to go through the dog first, and his bark was more than loud enough to alert the teachers to trouble. Marley was the same way.

"Hey Hagrid!" said Jamie, waving to the Half-giant. His popularity with the younger students had shot up since the play. Since it was nearly December, this would be his last run outdoors. Next week he would be running in the outer corridors, which had some heat spells on them. They just weren't very strong.

He was about to head towards the library after the run when he ran into trouble.

"What the...?!" said Jamie.

On the ground was Justin and Nicholas wasn't even acting himself.

"Scruffy, Alert!" said Jamie firmly. The German Sheppard began barking loud and long. He did it on a set series of signals that the older trainers had showed Jamie how to do.

Needless to say the teachers came running.

"I found them like this!" said Jamie quickly.

"We believe you," said Sprout. Jamie wasn't the sort to hurt others. In fact he was among those who helped the bullying problem in Hufflepuff.

"Back to the common rooms!" shouted Snape.

Jamie was lead back, having alerted the staff to the latest attack.

* * *

"That does it, I am so heading back to base for Christmas!" said Jamie.

"Gran said we'd be going as well. Our usual tradition was to visit my parents in St. Mungo's..." said Neville sheepishly.

"Bet you prefer the base to that hospital room, eh Neville?"

"You bet! At least now they know my name and aren't zombified," joked Neville.

Alice and Frank had made tremendous strides in their recovery. So much so that Charlie had cleared them to go with Augusta back to the Longbottom Manor. Needless to say the family was very happy about this.

They still worked at the base, helping others. It was either that or try a magical job which could cause a relapse.

Though that danger was relatively low, considering Charlie had ordered that memory removed permanently.

"By the way, I heard Nicky planned to extend the offer for you to learn how to manipulate plants with alchemy," said Jamie.

"Nicky?"

"That second year who showed up for the play and hasn't been seen since," Jamie clarified.

"The one you vouched for? Who was that anyway?"

"A diehard fan of _Full Metal Alchemist,_ and the one who made my gloves," said Jamie.

"You mean...?"

"Not while we're in Hogwarts! The last thing I need is for the headmaster to know I'm in contact with the Flemmings!"

"Your secret is safe with me," said Neville.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Okay, some of you have complained that I have been putting a few too many anime/manga references and not have Jamie involved more like he does in the books. There is a reason for this.**_

_**Unlike Canon, this Harry Potter isn't directly affected and isn't being goaded into danger by Ron and Hermione's insatiable curiosity to get to the bottom of every mystery they come across. He also has military training, which means he isn't going to jump into danger without coming up with a viable plan first. **_

_**There is also the fact that he isn't craving positive attention, and has a solid adult to fall back on. He knows it's not his place to solve problems like an attack on the school unless someone **_**makes****_ it his problem. Case in point, the scene where he accidentally acquires the Stone at the end of year one._**

_**Also, I would like to point out that I did NOT make a typo at the end of the last chapter. I deliberately had him say Flemmings, because as celebrities the Flamels would naturally have a secondary name to use in public to avoid unwanted attention. This century they go by the name Nick and Perry Flemming.**_

* * *

It was Christmas and they were having a blast. Neville enjoyed Christmas at the base, because it was easier to breath than being stuck at the Longbottom manor.

It was also pretty amusing to learn one of the methods used to calm down some of the more...violent...patients of the base.

"What's _My Little Pony_?" asked Neville. From what he could tell, it was a show about colorful talking horses and magic.

Jamie looked at the poster Neville happened to spot and almost winced. He didn't mind the show, but it wasn't something he wanted to watch on a daily basis like his FMA addiction.

"_My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_ is a show that was approved by the base doctors for the more violent patients because while it is geared towards females, it's also a rather friendly show that doesn't have much in the way of violence and can calm down almost all the people we toss in here to watch it. The main theme of the show is that friendship is a powerful method to obtain magic or something like that. It basically revolves around a purple unicorn who learns what real friendship is all about while she lives in a place called Ponyville."

"For an anime addict you know a lot about it," said Neville.

"Seen the entire first season on a dare from the twins. It's not bad, but I wouldn't buy it. Because the show is so friendly and cute it doesn't set off the patients like some of the others and it's innocence appeals to the more jaded soldiers," shrugged Jamie.

"Seriously?" said Neville.

"It's a show that has very little in way of violence and yet is still appealing to older viewers. Besides, it's still better than a show that makes anyone older than five want to gouge their eyes out," said Jamie.

"What show is that?" asked Neville.

"Oh Neville you poor, innocent, and unpolluted boy," said Jamie shaking his head.

Neville started to sweat bullets as Jamie lead him to another room.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!"

Jamie was cackling after tricking Neville into watching an episode containing the evil overlord of darkness and his annoying minions.

"_**I love you, you love me..."**_

There was the sound of breaking glass as Neville took a bat to the TV.

He breathed hard as the sound finally stopped and the evil one destroyed...for now.

"What in the spirits name was _that_ thing?!" said Neville.

"His name...is Barney, the Evil Overlord of Darkness. Parents the world over despise and hate him, yet his legacy continues. There's a reason why this room has a really old TV in here."

It was a very...therapeutic...method of snapping patients out of their relapses. Apparently even the most psychotic of the patients hated Barney enough to snap out of their episodes to destroy the TV's. Charlie thought it was worth the cost of replacing them if it snapped people out of their flashbacks.

* * *

"This is Hawk to Midori, can you hear me Midori?"

"Jamie, I'm right next to you," said Neville.

"They're in position," said Jamie grinning. On the other side of the hill were several of the younger veterans from the more recent wars. They had come in hopes of being helped so that they could return home without endangering their loved ones.

Neville grinned, as he prepped his snow ball. It had snowed heavily the day before Christmas, but they had to wait a day so that paths could be made.

The only ones allowed in the special shed where people went through their flashbacks for the next three days were those who felt they were about to lose it. It seemed that sort of thing wasn't going to happen.

Thanks to Charlie's idea of treating PTSD victims, those that came to the base were suffering their episodes less and less. At least fifteen people were able to work through their pain and return to semi-normal life.

Others were able to re-enlist with whatever branch they were from, now that they weren't suffering as badly.

"FIRE!" shouted Jamie. Neville laughed as he launched the snow balls. Thanks to the fact that the wards were so strong, any underage magic they did wasn't picked up. The two laughed as they cast snow ball charms and started hitting some of the others.

Fred and George were at the Burrow with their family.

"Come on men! We can't let these strapping boys beat us in war!" shouted Daniel. A chorus of agreement was heard from the other soldiers.

"Come on Nev! Let's keep this air strip clean!" laughed Jamie.

Charlie's idea of keeping the air strip for the planes clean was to let the boys use it as the setting for a snowball war. Unsurprisingly, that idea went down very well with the younger soldiers and visitors. Since a single charm could get rid of all the snow, it was a great day to have fun.

At least until someone noticed emergency lights in the distance.

"TIME OUT! Someone's coming in!" yelled Jake.

Charlie had run out and cast the charm, sweeping all the snow away in a flash. There had been a call on the radio requesting permission to land as the instruments had gone out without warning three miles ago.

"Brooms out! Jamie, lead them in! We can wipe their memories after, but we need those people down safely!" yelled Charlie.

"Sir, yes sir!" said Jamie. He raced across the tarmac and into the broom shed. He tossed Neville a broom and grabbed the radios next to them.

"Give us readings! We'll signal the plane!" shouted Jamie. He put the radio in his ear, and he could hear the crackle of sound from the other side.

"_There's a six mile an hour crosswind!"_ said Charlie.

Jamie took out his wand and wrote that quickly in the air. The pilot nodded and adjusted appropriately. Charlie read off the measurements, and Jamie wrote them out for the pilots. With him and Neville guiding them carefully down from brooms and with their wands bright enough to see past the snow.

It helped that they were bright orange, which contrasted with the snow without blinding the pilots.

Once the wheels set down properly and the plane had come to a complete stop, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The passengers of the air liner were quickly hustled inside away from the treatment areas and given something hot to drink while the mechanics checked over the plane to see why it broke down.

* * *

Jamie got to go on the special escort mission for the air liner that came to the base. Just in case the quick patch up didn't hold until they got to the air port they were heading for, the jets would give them the readouts from their planes to help land it again. Neville was in the other jet, acting as co-pilot.

Fortunately the plane made it safely to it's intended destination without any further mishaps. As soon as it set down on the tarmac, the jets flew off back to base.

All in all, a very fun Christmas!

* * *

"How was your Christmas Jamie?" asked Hermione.

"Fun. We got to deliver a plane full of passengers safely to their destination after they had trouble with their instruments," said Jamie.

"You're kidding, right?" said Hermione.

"You didn't hear about an air liner escorted by two older jets that left?"

"I was in Sweden for Christmas. In a total electronic-free zone," said Hermione primly.

Jamie whipped out the muggle newspaper and handed it to her. She read it, her eyes widening in shock.

"They landed at that base of yours?!"

"Grandpa's base for PTSD patients. So far fifteen have been able to return to civilian life and three have been cleared to re-enlist," said Jamie proudly.

"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? I heard that was a rather common ailment in soldiers returning from the battlefront," said Hermione.

"Along with depression, anxiety, insomnia..." Jamie listed.

"How does it work?" asked Hermione, handing back the paper.

"We allow them to work out their flashbacks, and once it's out of their system they go to counselors so that they can understand _why_ it's haunting them. Occasionally we lock them in padded rooms with TV's situated in the walls that play non-violent shows...particularly _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_ to calm them down. Quite a few of the soldiers actually bought the first and second season to watch on their own time," said Jamie.

"Soldiers actually like MLP?" said Hermione surprised.

"Oi, don't diss the Ponies. I happen to be a fan of Pinkie myself," said Jamie proudly.

"Always lend a hoof in friendship," said Hermione.

"You're a Brony!" said Jamie happily. Finally something they could agree on!

"My mother got me hooked when my sister started watching it during vacations," admitted Hermione.

"You have a sister?"

"Younger, and she's five."

"Cool."

Suddenly a thought occurred to Jamie. Perhaps they could convert some of the younger years to the Brony way and begin ending all this silly blood prejudice. A slow smirk started to creep up his face.

Soon...his minion army will be complete and he will dominate the magical communities with anime and ponies...

**WHAP!**

"...Did you just use a harisen?"

The large paper-folded fan in Hermione's hand loomed ominously behind Jamie.

"I've been catching up on Ranma ½ and this was the lesser of two evils," she said flatly.

"Whatever you say Akane junior," replied Jamie flippantly.

The harisen slapped him across the head again. Jamie had the bad feeling she was going to be very familiar with the back of his head.

* * *

Jamie was ticked. Because of the attack, his Otaku and part time assistance in the Drama club had been canceled until whatever monster was attacking the students was taken care of. All after class activities had been put on hold, and the teachers were escorting the students to each class along with the older prefects.

He was just glad Cedric was the one escorting them to class, and not Percy. Even with his new career goal in mind that boy was a nightmare to be around.

Fortunately Jamie did have an outlet that the teachers never thought to take away. Namely his runs outside with Scruffy, Neville and Marley.

This was because the dogs had the scent of whatever monster was lurking in the school and would alert their partners to it if it tried to get near them. There was also the fact that whatever it was, had to be reptilian and cold blooded because it hadn't attacked at all during the cold winter months and most of the areas it hit had some very strong warming charms around it. This meant that as long as they were outside the castle, they were relatively safe.

When Jamie pointed this out to his fellow Puffs, Sprout cleared them to go outside as much as possible through the shortest routes when class wasn't in session. This lessened the chances of people getting attacked and limited the number of students in danger at any given time.

It took less than a week for the other teachers to catch on, and soon any student not in the library under heavy wards to prevent anything non-human in except house elves or in their house commons were outside. Jamie had gotten several balls to play games with to the vocal approval of Dean Thomas.

Jamie wouldn't doubt for a second that after this whole mess was sorted out, the house system would come crumbling down as the children acted their age for a change.

Outside his club activities and study groups, Jamie was just a tad bit too serious. His military training had become an ingrained habit, since his grandfather had put him in military academy as soon as he was old enough to attend.

Everyone noticed it, but Jamie tried hard to act normal. The problem was, outside his occasional Otaku-side, he had little experience being a regular kid.

So it came as a bit of a surprise that some of the younger students saw him using his hand-to-hand forms and asked for training. A few of the older students as well.

Jamie took the chance he got and immediately fell into something most of his fellow cadets feared...the drill sergeant mode.

His first act was to get them in shape, and considering the menu at the school he had a lot of work ahead of him. Dumbledore refused to change the menu, and even with the addition of new recipes for the elves, it was still a long way to go for anything healthy unless you were a vegetarian.

A few quit, but most stayed. They didn't want to be helpless and end up in the hospital wing like the others.

Ever so slowly, the school exams began to loom on the horizon...

* * *

Jamie was reading by one of the trees near the lake when he heard the news. Hermione was in the hospital wing and Ginny Weasly, a girl he had been avoiding for good reason for the entire year, had been taken into the Chamber itself.

Jamie cursed, before he went to get Sprout.

He had hoped that the school would end before any real danger was presented, so that they could hire experts to deal with this mess. Aside from a few being petrified, there hadn't been any real reason to close the school.

Even Lucius had been unable to remove Dumbledore, despite his attempts to do so because Augusta and her side had blocked him. Hagrid had also been removed from the premises by Charlie who had asked the man to come help move things around the base and deal with any out of control patients, since most soldiers would have great difficultly taking down a half-giant who was naturally stronger than most humans.

Jamie wouldn't have doubted for an instant Fudge would have sent Hagrid to Azkaban prison just to appear that he was doing something if Charlie hadn't had Hagrid leave school grounds after the second attack.

It would be difficult for the Minister to pin the blame on the friendly groundskeeper if the man wasn't even on school grounds for the attacks.

Jamie had, through his twice daily run around the grounds, accidentally stumbled upon Slytherin's escape route from the Chamber. The man couldn't have possibly built it from the castle downwards, as it wouldn't have stayed secret for long with the students around.

He knew the other end came out to Myrtle's bathroom, having avoided the area that the serpent came out and gone straight to the other entrance. He could even open up the stairs and avoid the mess, though he had to toss out the shoes he had been wearing at the time.

To be fair though, he usually had on his older pair when he went on a run.

Jamie found Sprout, along with Snape and McGonagall and said flatly "I know how to get into the Chamber, but I have no idea what the monster is. I'm guessing basilisk due to the fact it can't leave the warm areas and not even Salazar was stupid enough to put a lamia anywhere near a school full of children."

There was a collective blink.

"How would you know where the Chamber's entrance is?" asked Snape.

"Found it by accident on my runs. Even found the other end, though that is definitely his escape route."

"How soon can we get into the Chamber?" asked McGonagall. She wasn't about to let one of her lions die without a fight dammit!

"Five minutes, but I had better call reinforcements. If it _is_ a basilisk, then we'll need actual ammo to kill the damn thing, instead of the paintball bullets I bring with me every year. I'm not stupid enough to bring live ammo to a school full of delinquents and idiots," said Jamie flatly.

And with that, he ran to his dorm and grabbed a magically powered cell phone to call in the cavalry.


	11. Chapter 11

McGongall nodded to the team of former and current soldiers who knew how to deal with monsters in many forms. They were going to take down a basilisk, and the help would be more than welcomed.

She looked at the Puff leading them through the tunnel, having been here countless times for a break from the fear-ridden castle.

Jamie Potter was not what she was expecting from the child she had once bounced on her knee and had to spend a painful week when he pulled her tail too hard when he was a few months old. Compared to how he could have turned out had Dumbledore's plan to leave him with Petunia actually succeeded, she preferred the change.

A military bound Harry, no, Jamie, was preferable to a fearful child who was out of his league in a world that expected more than he could possibly offer.

"There is one thing I'm curious about, Mr. Potter. Out of all the clubs in the school why did you join the one widely regarded as a joke?" she asked.

That had been bugging her for a while now, ever since they did that play. All she knew of it was that the children who joined it loved foreign cartoons and did their best to recreate the magic in the shows. Well, that and a large portion of the more open Ravenclaws were in it.

"Tell me Professor, what do you know of our club's true goal?"

"Only that you seek to recreate magic on muggle shows and dress up in silly costumes for each meeting," she answered. That was all anyone outside the club knew of it.

"That is just the most basic thing we do in the club, and it's our best cover in case the Ministry ever takes a look at it. In truth it's more of a place where like-minded individuals try to stretch the bounds of conventional thinking. The school doesn't encourage thinking outside the box, and half the time if one tried to do some of the things we try on a regular basis they would be branded dark and arrested at the very least. For example, we are currently working on getting a muggle DVD player, which is something we can watch movies on, to work solely on magic. If the ministry ever caught wind they would slap a fine on us and take it away."

"And the costumes?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Do you know how rare it is that we have a chance to act like the children we actually are? Or wear our favorite outfits and pretend to be something other than a witch or wizard without fear of being mocked? The costumes let us lower our usual barriers of the world outside our meeting place and let us get in the right mindset. Besides, it's harmless fun."

McGonagall decided then and there to sit in on one of their meetings once this was over with to see for herself whether this club was harmless. She knew Flitwick sponsored it regularly, often giving members to the restricted section for a project or two.

* * *

Jamie had only one thing to say once he actually opened the Chamber. He had never gone in because he had more sense, and he had never gone past the outer tunnels because this snake apparently really hated the cold.

"Slytherin has the worst taste in decoration I have ever had the misfortune to see," said Jamie flatly. Several of the other soldiers snickered in agreement.

Snape looked like he wanted to say something in defense of his house's founder, but even he reluctantly agreed that the amount of snakes and the relief on the back of the wall was a bit overdone. He liked snakes, but this was just ridiculous.

There, near the relief, was Ginny Weasly.

Instead of rushing to her, Jamie let the older soldiers take point and they scouted the area first.

"Clear!" sounded off from ten different points.

The closer Jamie got to the relief, the more he noted lines where the chin was.

"I think the basilisk comes from the mouth of the statue...why else would it have those lines?" said Jamie.

Snape privately agreed. Some of the soldiers crept up to the relief and started planting explosives around it. If that snake wasn't out before now, it would be in for a very nasty surprise once that mouth opened. There was enough C4 to destroy the relief itself!

"What it that white substance they put into the cracks?" asked Flitwick. Out of all the Professors, only Sprout had stayed behind.

Partly because her area of expertise was plants, not animals, but mostly because she was the best out of the four Heads who could keep the children in line and calm.

That had been Jamie's reasoning anyway. Everyone else had been armed with the strongest reflective sunglasses they could get to prevent instant death. And a rooster would have given them away in a heartbeat.

Jamie had the weirdest feeling that he was supposed to go to Ginny alone, so he had everyone hiding under a disillusionment charm while he checked on the girl.

A spectre appeared, and Jamie blasted him before he could say a word.

That clearly ticked off the ghost, or whatever it was. He turned to the relief, not even noticing the C4 lined along the mouth, which was odd. Clearly his possesion of the Weasly girl didn't include good eyesight.

"_**SPEAK TO ME SLYTHERIN, GREATEST OF THE HOGWARTS FOUR!" **_he shouted enraged.

The stone opened, very reluctantly because of the putty that had been wedged in there.

The second anything became visible, which was the snout, Jamie shouted "FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

Ten shield charms covered everyone there, as Jamie was next to Ginny he blocked most of the explosion and debris. The shockwave, however, wasn't covered by the charm.

Bits of basilisk fell down along with a smattering of dust and rubble.

The ghostly boy turned to Jamie enraged beyond belief.

"WHAT DID YOU DO POTTER?!"

"Funny thing, C4. Reacts even stronger when used by a command-detonated charm. Your little basilisk is dead, and once we find out what you're using to anchor yourself to Miss Weasly, you'll be nothing more than a memory," said Jamie.

"Got a diary here...doesn't look like it's burning," said Derrick. Around his shoulder was a lion in red and gold.

He was a Hogwarts graduate from shortly before the war ended thanks to Jamie. He was also one of the original Otaku club members when it was first formed.

Because the Ministry ran like headless chickens, and they didn't want any Death Eater children finding out about their side project, one of the Gryffindors had come up with the cover of a club for a rather new craze called Anime. Around that time, the only thing available had been _Sailor Moon_ and _Dragonball_. However it had served their purpose and the craze had only grown, not shrunk in recent years.

The Otaku club was little more than a cover for the free thinking children who wanted to improve on things the Ministry wouldn't approve of unless they had to.

Like a potion-enhanced C4 that detonated on a specific command for instance. Any progress made in the club was passed on to old and current members, regardless of house. That was part of the reason why there were so many Ravenclaws in it...they needed the help researching half the stuff the club came up with.

"Any idea what that is?" asked Snape.

"My guess would be soul shard. I'm not detecting any of the usual damage-protection spells on it. Professor Flitwick, if you would be so kind as to call your cousins at Gringotts for someone to destroy this? We'll need their help to keep this girl from being killed by it," said Derrick.

"DON'T IGNORE ME!" shrieked the shard.

"How can we with such an annoying whine?" shot Jamie. The idiot hadn't even noticed that one of the soldiers had nicked the stolen wand from him...

* * *

An hour later the diary was destroyed beyond recognition, and they had an idea of who was to blame for this mess.

Lucius was cunning yes, but he had to work on his slight of hand better.

Jamie did however stop Flitwick after Dumbledore called him in for some advice.

"Yes Mr. Potter?"

"Sir, with your permission I would like to request that the Otaku club be allowed to use the Chamber for practice."

"I thought that the second largest study room would suffice for it's...activities?" asked Flitwick.

"Under normal circumstances, yes. However several of my friends wanted to take up archery, and the chances of hitting bystanders would drop if we were to do it in a secluded area. If we find anything we don't recognize we could always bring in a teacher to check it out. The Otaku club is, after all, one of the best at defense magic."

Flitwick hid a smile at that. For a club that hid it's true purpose behind the guise of children re-enacting their favorite shows, the members had the highest defense grades the school had ever seen. Not a single member had ever failed their OWLs or NEWTs.

Something that would annoy Hermione Granger would she ever become aware of this.

"I shall consider it. I suppose this has something to do with the fact only a parselmouth would be able to find either entrance, as none of the teachers have been able to find it since?" said Flitwick with a grin.

Jamie had neglected to tell them that fact, and he had claimed that he had never found where the other entrance went due to the slime that made climbing up a smelly, and quite easily impossible prospect.

Not a single teacher noticed the footmarks that went up without any reason why.

"Would it help if the Otaku club agreed to help carrying out the corpse of that basilisk so that we could sell it to increase the schools coffers?"

"That might tip the balance in your favor. I shall certainly ask."

Flitwick bid him a good day and headed towards the Headmaster's office.

For a Hufflepuff, Jamie Potter was decidedly a Slytherinish badger. He also knew why the boy wanted the Chamber for the club, and Archery was the least of his ideas.

It would be nice to practice some of the more...dangerous and controversial spells without having to worry about some Ministry drone coming in and ruining their fun. Flitwick was eager to try out that summoning spell that one of the graduates had finally worked out last year.

(It registered as a basic summoning charm, hence why the Ministry never picked up on it. Fortunately the charms to detect magic use only detected the type, not the power behind it.)

* * *

Dumbledore was less than pleased when he heard the request. However he doubted that the Otaku club could possibly do more harm than say, the Charm's club. The Otaku club was quite possibly the most useless one in the entire lot, so he allowed it. As far as he knew, they just pretended to be characters in those little shows they liked so much. He had even come to the club room on days they practiced to enjoy the show. Flitwick always gave him the days they were practicing something he knew Albus would have an interest in.

So he allowed it, as long as the club agreed to bring anything they considered dangerous to the teacher's attention post haste. They could explore the Chamber for him, and he wouldn't have to lift a finger to do anything.

He could always confiscate any books they found later after all.

* * *

Jamie wore his Roy Mustang outfit, complete with gloves and his contacts. This was the last meeting of the year, seeing as how the year was almost over anyway.

The club filled in, and everyone was there.

He snapped his fingers once, to get their attention.

"Alright, now that I have your attention... I have great news!"

"Get on with it!" shouted a girl in Lina Inverse's trademark outfit.

Jamie coughed.

"As you are all aware, the Chamber of Secrets has been found and the Monster killed thanks to our club's true reason for existing. I have gone through our club sponsor, Professor Flitwick (the tiny professor waved to everyone from his seat next to Jamie) and Dumbledore has agreed to let us use the Chamber for 'archery practice'" said Jamie, waiting for the laughter to die down. Many of them had by that point figured out why he had called them there.

"Now as you all know, we have never been able to practice some of our more...controversial...spells and items without worrying about a Ministry drone coming around. Those of you with Ministry family members or sponsors, if you feel uncomfortable, leave now."

Not a single person moved. Most of those with Ministry families knew the risk of staying in the club after their first demonstration of magic that Fudge and his cronies would most certainly never approve of because they were new. Those that might run home talking about it usually had their memory wiped and were convinced that they would rather join the drama club.

That was the second purpose of the Drama club, to take in the Otaku members who couldn't keep their mouth shut but still wanted a club to dress up in.

"Alright. Now as we all know, the Ministry would come down on us hard if they ever learned what we really do here. Which is why next year we are moving anything that would get us shut down into the Chamber. Flitwick and some of his goblin relatives have already warded the Chamber to keep anyone we don't want out. Next year I'll be handing out passes for those who want to do borderline spell research in the Chamber. Now the entire club won't be able to go in all at once, because that would draw too much attention. Which is why we'll be going in shifts to insure that our side projects are never found out. Once we clear out the basilisk corpse, which I have already promised we would to insure Dumbledore didn't bring anyone to get it himself, it will be ours to do as we wish."

"Please note that I will be the only professor that will come down there unless brought in by Jamie," Flitwick spoke up, "Any of the other teachers have no idea how we operate in here thanks in part to keeping Dumbledore out of the loop. Now I will be teaching you all more defense spells on a more personal basis in the Chamber. I have little doubt Voldemort will come back, and I don't want any of my fellow Otaku to be killed because of half assed spell casting."

Several students straightened up. Things were finally starting to pick up.

"Sir, what exactly did you face in the Chamber?" asked one first year.

"We face a soul shard, one of the most foul things created by magic. To create one you must become a murderer and rip your own soul into pieces. I find out any of you even thinking of trying it, I will hunt you down myself," said Flitwick bluntly.

Every student there looked sick at the thought of splitting their soul apart like that. One of the fourth years raised their hand.

"Yes?"

"Can we research ways to find and destroy them?" she asked.

"You find those spells, I will give you all a permanent pass to the Restricted Section and a get out of detention free card," said Flitwick.

With that kind of reward waiting for those who found those spells, the Otaku were more inspired than ever to help out.

"Now I have spoken to the ward masters, and I will be training anyone interested in how to clean, maintain, and shoot a gun in the Chamber. Oh, and there will be a minor archery range put in there as well. Sir Nicholas has even agreed to find a Japanese samurai who can show us how to use swords, if anyone is interested," said Jamie.

Now that got their attention. Many of the club members have always wanted to learn how to use a sword, but none of the ghosts had the correct skill set they wanted.

With that kind of treat waiting for them next year, many were more than eager to come back again, even if it meant they would have to remove the basilisk corpse first.

"Now that's out of the way, will all third years and above follow me to the secondary entrance? The sooner we get that corpse out, the less the Chamber will smell when we really start next year," said Jamie.

Flitwick followed them as a matter of course, having already been keyed into the wards. It took several hours, and multiple pain relievers, but the debris was cleared from the mouth, and everyone was able to see how long the basilisk really was.

* * *

It was quite a sight during dinner when several of the other students and teachers watched the Otaku Club coming out of the Forbidden Forest bearing the dead corpse of the basilisk...all eighty feet of it.

They came along the lake path to keep Dumbledore from finding the true entrance.

"As promised Headmaster, the Otaku Club pitched in to remove the corpse of the basilisk. The goblins will be here within the hour to make an assessment so that we may add it to the school's coffers," said Jamie.

Everyone was still in shock at the fact they had brought the dead basilisk out in the open for everyone to see. The head had been completely destroyed by the explosion, but it was still obvious what it was.

Jamie had the club bring the shed skin into the Chamber, since they didn't want it to be found by accident. He had only said they would bring the corpse, not the skins that the thing had to have shed over the years.

Luna Lovegood had already found several inside what was left of the relief. More than enough for the goblins to make armor for every student to have ever graced the club. And of course, one full set of goblin armor for Professor Flitwick, made entirely of basilisk skin (the most recent) as a thank you for having helped them over the years.

By law he couldn't have one made for him, but there was nothing against owning one that was a gift from a student, particularly an heir of an old line.

A nice little way of circumventing those silly pure blood laws. Flitwick was touched that they had it done, all for him.


	12. Chapter 12

Over the course of a month, Jamie had debriefed his grandfather about the entire Chamber incident, given instruction on how to open a channel for some of the more...restricted military supplies for his club, which could only be used sparingly, and had a visit from Sir Nicholas that still had Jamie cursing because he had shown up in the middle of his shower.

On the plus side, a ghost from Japan was more than willing to help train them in the true way of the sword.

The fact they would be trained by the spirit of Yagyu Jubei himself was an honor, in Jamie's opinion. Apparently he had garnered some standing among ghosts by avenging one of their own, even indirectly, and by helping Sir Nicholas.

Apparently telling off those dullahan who had been harassing Nicholas on his Death Day had been the tipping point.

Jamie made sure to order enough period correct outfits and bokken for the club. Once they were able to handle the swords correctly, he would see to getting katana made by the goblins.

* * *

Jamie was on yet another warship, this time an aircraft carrier. Charlie had recently gotten an influx of patients at the base, and he felt it was a bit too dangerous for his grandson to stick around.

So he had asked a few favors and gotten Jamie on one of Her Majesty's most exclusive aircraft carriers that had several magically inclined people, as well as numerous squibs. It's crew consisted solely of those who were aware of magic, whether by direct relation or because they were magic. Every man or woman on the ship had abandoned the magical world to serve in the navy, or those who had family that had died in the war who wanted to have a job that they could be proud of, but keep them very busy all year long.

"Enjoying your stay on the _Hufflepuff_?" asked the captain with a knowing grin. There were four ships on the sea with the names of each Hogwarts house. Three were air craft carriers, and one was a submarine...though that one belong to mostly Ravenclaws who used it to get rid of underwater mines and explore the bottom of the sea.

Word had it they were still trying to get it to survive a trip into the deepest trench in the sea. Even magic had trouble working that deep.

"Feels like home sir!" grinned Jamie. This was a very familiar pattern to him. Come home, get packed and live on sea for a few months.

"I hear the _Ravenclaw_ has agreed to be your supplier of the more restricted items. Apparently the thought of one-upping that caging Headmaster and getting improved items was worth sending one of our only magically inclined crews back to the school."

"My club can have a dock for them prepared, if given schematics. Flitwick is one of our biggest supporters there," said Jamie.

Because of his heritage, Flitwick had been brought in early on when the club was still trying to become a legitimate one. Once he figured out their real purpose, and being tired of the 'no killing' rule Dumbledore insisted on, he had agreed to help them out.

The Otaku Club's contributions nearly ended the war in their favor, if Jamie hadn't ended it so abruptly.

As to why he was on the _Hufflepuff_...well it had little to do with his house affiliation (it helped though). Jamie chose this particular air craft carrier because it was one of the few that worked alongside the RAF.

Which was why he was working alongside the mechanics on the ship, since they had some of the newer models.

He wasn't a cabin boy anymore, which meant a lot fewer chores.

Then again, most cleaning was done by charms, unless the one doing it had annoyed the captain or one of the officers too much. Then they had to do it by hand. Because of the size of the ship and their backgrounds, only those with magical relatives (I/E muggleborn relatives) cleaned anything without magic. It wasn't because they were lazy, far from it. It simply wasn't practical with how few people were on the ship. They could spend weeks cleaning it by hand!

Plus there was the fact that Jamie wasn't the only school-aged kid on board.

Due to the influx of magicals, Charlie had all the usual children who visited sent to these ships in order to learn magic over the summer.

Fred, George, Neville, Luna, pretty much all the kids who knew where the base was or had contact with Jamie were on one of the ships. Neville, Susan Bones, and Hannah Abbot were on the _Hufflepuff _with Jamie. Granger was on the submarine along with Luna learning more about marine life from a magical/muggle perspective (the _Ravenclaw_ had windows so heavily charmed that it would take quite the blow to break them, especially underwater at the depths it usually went). The twins, Ron and surprisingly enough Dean Thomas (he had decided to hang around Jamie when he found out the boy followed the same football teams) had gone onto the _Gryffindor._

"So what's your plan for the Halloween special?" asked Mike. He had been transferred to the _Hufflepuff_ last month.

"I was thinking _Nightmare Before Christmas_. That should keep Dumbledore out of our meetings," said Jamie.

"Let me guess. Allow him to see your practice, while the others work in the Chamber?"

"That's the idea. So long as we keep explosions at a minimum, he shouldn't suspect a thing."

"Should be interesting to see how you kids pull this one off."

All around England and some in Scotland, Jamie outlined his plan to keep Dumbledore out of the loop using the Halloween play. Almost everyone agreed to the idea.

Naturally there was some argument over who would play what. Nearly the entire club voted Jamie as Jack the Pumpkin King, though that sparked a loud debate over who would play the rag doll who became his girlfriend.

Eventually the most unlikely candidate was elected.

One of the junior members of the club, Luna Lovegood, managed to snag the part as Sally.

It was rather simple how she pulled that off.

She was the only pure blood who had actually seen the movie, and most of the other girls would be in the Chamber during rehearsal.

Well, that and she came up with the best idea Jamie had ever heard for the part of the 'Mayor' in the movie.

The one chosen to play the mayor was going to dress up as Minister Fudge as a joke. No doubt the other muggleborns, who had seen the movie would get a laugh.

* * *

Charlie had been goaded into this by the other veterans, who felt he needed a life outside the base. Even his grandson had activities beyond military life.

Which was why they had blackmailed him into taking Augusta out on a date. Frank and Alice were in on it too, saying she needed to get out and about more often.

Now Charlie had a friendly night out planned, as he really didn't feel like dating Augusta Longbottom.

When he picked her up at the mansion, she apparently had the same idea.

The two spent an evening of wining, dining, and just relaxing in each other's company. They weren't looking for love, at least not at the moment. Both had lost spouses in the war, and had lost their children. Augusta at least had Frank and Alice back, and Alice was showing signs again.

This time the child would be raised by it's parents instead of Augusta. Raising Neville had been hard enough, because he looked so much like his father.

* * *

"So Nev, I heard you're going to be a big brother soon," said Jamie at port.

"Yeah. According to Dr. Grace, I'm going to have a little sister soon," said Neville.

"Cool! So wanna play catch or something?" asked Jamie.

"What's catch?"

"Toss a ball around? It's not like we have anything better to do since the internet is down and they're reworking the electricity," said Jamie.

Well, that and they were told not to do anything that counted as work, as today was their day off.

They had one more day before the school year started, and Charlie had already picked up their school things for the year. They just had to play the waiting game.

So Jamie went into the shed and brought out a few balls and mitts. Neville quickly got the gist of the game and the two were having fun playing like normal kids.

Afterwords they had to stay in the wreck room because one of the new re-enactors got loose. So Jamie brought out the manga collection.

"Pick a pic, any pic!" he grinned.

"Hmm...I think I'll try...this one!" said Neville. The pictures were of characters from the manga which Jamie had printed out to decorate his room with. Much more fun than boring wallpaper.

"Let's see...that's Stolas and he's from... Here it is! _Necromancer_! A tale about a teen who resurrects the dead for a price with the aid of a demon! It's really good!" said Jamie.

Neville immediately dove into the story, though halfway into the second book he asked "Why doesn't Faust just ask one of his clients to deal with the policewoman? I mean that has to be irritating, being told what you're doing is evil," said Neville.

Jamie looked up from his new _Jigoku Shoujo (Hell Girl)_ to reply "You learn who she really is near the end. There's a reason why he tolerates her interruptions."

"Still...this is actually quite fascinating. You can see both sides of the story and how the action of resurrecting the dead always have a second price to pay, whether it is emotionally or physically."

"You mean like the kid who wanted to be a necromancer because he thought it made people happy? The main reason I even got that series was because of that chapter, as it deals with several issues of humanity," said Jamie. He had liked that series quite a bit.

"Too bad we can't do this for a play," said Neville.

"Maybe next year. Personally I think _The Ice Cold Demon's Tale_ would be a better fit," said Jamie.

"And that is?"

"Finish that series and I'll give you the link to it," said Jamie.

The wireless and power had been restored by dinner.

Neville was blushing up a storm.

"Jamie... Why do you keep introducing me to series that had boy/boy pairings?" Neville whined. Yet again, Jamie had tricked him into reading a yaoi story.

"You're still reading it, aren't you? I could care less about the pairings themselves, but the story lines are excellent," said Jamie, not looking up.

Though Neville could hear him trying not to laugh at his embarrassment. He threw a pillow at the boy because of it.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" he complained.

"Considering how backwards the magical communities are? Yes."

"Same genders aren't hated like they are in certain parts of the world, so long as one is willing to become the opposite long enough for a child to be conceived. I think that's what started the gender-switching trade..." said Neville.

It was true. Same gender couples weren't frowned on like they were in the mundane world, so long as one of the couple didn't mind switching genders long enough to continue their line. 'Blood purity above all' and all that rot.

"But seriously, why do you keep introducing me to these boy on boy series?" asked Neville.

"Why do you keep reading them, despite knowing they have yaoi pairings?" countered Jamie with a snicker.

"Yaoi?"

"Boy on boy pairings are yaoi, while girl on girl is yuri. There is also anthro (think cat girls), lolicons (underage) and hetero, which is straight boy and girl."

"How do you know this stuff? You're only thirteen!" asked Neville.

Jamie lowered his book and looked at him.

"Neville, I spent four years on naval ships with boys older than me as a cabin boy. I was introduced to anime and manga by a fifteen year old who thought it was funny to show me a book more suited to fifteen year olds at age eight. I learned this stuff solely so I would understand what the hell half the terms actually _meant_ so I could properly enjoy it," said Jamie flatly.

"So what are you guys really going to be doing in the Chamber of Secrets?" asked Neville, changing the topic.

"Do you want the real answer or are you just changing the subject?"

"I'm serious!"

"Neville, we have everyone who passes the initial test in our club swear an unbreakable vow of silence on club members. In order to learn what we would really be doing down there, you would have to become a full fledged member of the club, not just one of our lesser members."

Neville, unlike Jamie, was a part of the smaller offshoot of the Otaku club called the Fantasy club. Most of the people in that did the same thing as the Otaku club, only they dressed as literary characters like Macbeth or from popular fantasy series. They accepted students who weren't able to commit to graphic novels and Japanese cartoons the way the Otaku club had, but were more light otaku than serious ones.

Generally the Otaku rejects either went into the Drama club or the Fantasy club.

"Can I think about it?" asked Neville. To have such a thing for a simple club meant they did something serious in it.

In the entire school, only five of the clubs in it used an unbreakable vow for all members. The Charms Club (their vow was to never use the charms created against other students until _after_ they graduated and only in times of war), the lone Defense club (they swore never to cast any harmful spells that were used in the club outside the club room unless the circumstances called for it, like a fight to the death), the Magical Animals club (they swore never to harm an animal unless it needed to be put down), the Law club (their vow was to never use their powers for evil, like say helping Fudge or a woman they affectionately called Umbitch) and the Otaku club, who had a vow of silence about their true goals.

They even had a special password to insure that no one could trick their way in through polyjuice or being a metamorph. They had caught quite a few people that way, mostly Slytherins who should have known better than to cross the Otaku.

"Tell you what, how about I give you another series, one that I personally guarantee doesn't have any yaoi in it?"

"Deal," said Neville.

Jamie handed him a book called _Saint Dragon Girl_. One volume in and Neville was hooked.

* * *

"Jamie! Am I glad to see you. We've got the new passphrase for the club, and I need our president's approval for it to go through."

Jamie had, after last years play, been elected the new Otaku Club President because of how well he played Roy. Well that and the fact he had secured a new area they could experiment in without having to deal with the teachers had done a lot to secure his new position.

Considering how quickly he had organized the club's less known activities, they were able to accept him despite his age.

"What's the passcode for this year?"

Paul grinned.

"Team Rocket's speech. Every time a group comes in, you have to repeat the entire thing, including Meowth's part, without stopping. You also have to name the series and what their original team was in the first appearance. Every time you go, you have to mention another member from the organization in place of Jesse and James," said Paul.

"Perfect. Only a true Otaku would remember any of those, and be able to repeat that speech word for word without being embarrassed by it."

"Not to mention they would have to wear one of Jesse or James' costumes without looking like an idiot," said Paul with a snicker.

Only a true Otaku would know that Jesse and James had a thing for Crossplay, or wearing the clothing of the opposite gender. It wouldn't be bad for the girls, but for the guys it would expose the real otaku from the fakers trying to break in.

Jamie couldn't wait to test out the new applicants. This would be fun.


	13. Chapter 13

_**Okay, before there is a mass lynching over the fact that there is very little military elements in this story, I will explain why the Otaku club is featured more than his military background.**_

_**At the moment I am trying to show Jamie's childhood and early years as a normal student enjoying his youth. After year four, when Voldemort comes back, I'll start on the more militaristic side of Jamie, as he calls on the veterans and those who were victims of the first war with Voldemort who went into the army. In this story, there will be three sides in the war.**_

_**Voldemort and his Death Eaters, Dumbledore and his Order (which will be greatly reduced) and Charles Potter's group, who will be the main force against Voldemort.**_

_**Sorry if I have put some of you off with all the anime/manga references in the story, but I wanted to set the mood for the early years in Hogwarts before it got really serious. I hope you can be patient until fifth year when things really pick up and the Otaku club takes on it's true role.**_

* * *

It was the third week into the semester, and now that everyone had more or less settled in, it was time to test the new otaku club applicants. As per tradition, the club president was in full costume and in the correct character.

This time around he was dressed as Byakuya from Bleach. He suited the role so well it was scary.

"Welcome new members. As club president, I am the one who tests whether or not you are worthy of at least joining the club. Every year we test new applicants using a very strenuous series of tests to see how well you know your series, characters, or genre. To begin, we are going to have each of you give us at least three of the lesser known manga or anime series, and you cannot give the same answer as the one before. You can, however repeat an answer if you can name a character or chapter from that series. Any questions?"

No one raised their hand.

"Let us begin."

Jamie walked up to the first applicant, who happened to be Neville.

"Name three of the less known series which were never published in either America or Britain."

"_Shitsurakuen_, or _Paradise Lost_, _Bara no Maria_, and _Takamagahara_."

"Three characters, one from each of the examples," said Jamie.

"Sora, the main heroine from _Paradise Lost_. Azian, one of the protagonists who is after the main character in _Bara no Maria_. Yamato, the main character in _Tamagahara_ who has the special power of a god."

"Very good. You pass the initial exam. Next!"

"Hiya! I'm Yachiru from _Bleach._ For our next test, you'll have to name three authors of popular or semi-popular series! Begin!" said Michelle. The rule was that you had to be in character and full costume for the tests, and they had to match the series that the president had gone with.

"Tite Kubo, Kishimoto, and Yugiru Sugisaki."

"Correct! Go on to the next test plant-boy!" said Michelle. Neville went to the next one, who was dressed as Ichigo Kurosaki.

"Name three companies that produce anime or manga."

"Funimation, Gonzo and Tokyopop."

"Correct! Next station!"

The next examiner was dressed as Rukia.

"Put the series into the correct genre. You have to get four out of six right to pass."

Neville quickly put _D. _ under romance, _Mouse_ under comedy,_ Bleach_ under action, _Ghost Hunt _under supernatural, and two under horror, which were _Darker than Black_ and _Hell Girl_ respectively.

"Correct. Go to the last station!"

The final examiner was dressed as Urahara.

"Name this series this song is from to pass. Anyone who can get past the first four generally have an easy last one."

Neville put on the headphones, and immediately wrote down his answer. They didn't want to make it too easy.

He looked at the paper and said "Correct. Go to Jamie to get your new name badge."

Neville went back to the front of the line, where Jamie handed him a new name tag to show he was officially a full Otaku member.

"Welcome to the fold, Neville...or should I say Kurama?" grinned Jamie.

Neville had a Yoko Kurama costume made for him so he could attend properly.

Neville grinned, and held out a fake rose.

"I can't wait to find out how to create a real Rose Whip," said Neville.

After reading the _Yu Yu Hakusho_ series and immediately falling in love with Kurama's character, Neville had made up his mind to become a full Otaku member if only to learn how to create an actual Rose Whip.

Considering that was one of the Otaku's side projects, he would fit right in.

* * *

Jamie lead the first group into the Chamber of Secrets. They would have to remodel before the could get any real work done.

Those tacky snakes _had_ to go.

"Right, for our first meeting in the Chamber, we aren't going to use the new passcode system just yet. Flitwick is covering for us, so the teachers won't be trying to come in. We have permission to be here from Dumbledore, who thinks we're down here practicing archery, among other things. Once we're finished redecorating, the real work will begin. Yes, Michelle?"

"We are going to be learning archery, right?"

"Well, among other things. There's an alarm ward that will go off in anyone unauthorized tries to come down here, so we'll have plenty of time hiding our real projects and putting up the archery range to hide our tracks. Also, you won't _believe_ who Sir Nicholas got to teach us kenjutsu!" said Jamie grinning. He was dressed as Hiei for today.

"Who?"

"Yagyu Jubei. Apparently he didn't want to pass on and wanted to see how the way of the samurai would fair," said Jamie.

"Seriously? THE Yagyu Jubei?!" said Paul with stars in his eyes.

"Yup. It helps that we're a British school and not an American...man was he pissed about them..." muttered Jamie.

He had met with the ghost personally, had impressed the man, and then listened to him rant about how the American's nearly destroyed his homeland.

Finding out that he would be teaching Brits, not American's had been one of the reasons he had agreed to help.

"Now, does everyone have their brooms?" said Jamie.

All fifty of the senior Otaku (those that had been members for at least two years) and the group with special skill in certain areas (those who had more power, or ability in certain areas) raised their brooms.

"Do you all have the cleaning supplies?"

Twenty-five of them held up various supplies which would be split amongst the group.

"Alright people, let's decorate!"

"HAI!"

For the rest of the night and well into Saturday morning, the Otaku club put their...passion...into turning this into the ideal place to experiment and meet in secret.

Due to the secrecy of their charter, a ghost would be on standby near both entrances of the Chamber itself to test anyone who came near it.

The only one they wouldn't challenge was Jamie, and that was because he could access both entrances through the original way, which was a command in parseltongue.

It would be difficult for an imposter to duplicate Jamie's unique gift, and any imposter would quickly be found out if they tried a recording device with the command on it.

It was an interesting thing that ghosts could fry electronics simply by passing through them. And in the case of recordings they overwrite the originals and put an EVP (electronic voice phenomena) instead.

Myrtle was more than happy to play such tricks on anyone stupid enough to imitate Jamie.

Jamie took out a whistle and blew it.

"Alright team, we're done for today! Next weekend we're going to add some color and maybe some posters!" shouted Jamie.

"Yay..." yawned Paul.

Everyone left in groups based on gender and age. The girls went up the pipes to Myrtle's bathroom, since it wouldn't be too suspicious for them to be. The boys went the forest route, making sure to go around the lake to avoid any issues.

Almost all of them took a long shower before falling straight asleep. The only one who was even remotely awake was Jamie, and that was because he had to let Scruffy out to use the restroom.

Only then did he crash in his bed.

* * *

Yagyu Jubei kept a strict guard over the secondary entrance to the chamber.

The boy, James Potter, or Jamie by those who knew him, was a mystery.

He had honor, more than any English-speaking person he had the 'pleasure' of meeting after his death. The boy was trained, and trained well in the art of modern warfare. His future plans revolved around serving one of higher standing worth his loyalty, a concept he could agree with wholeheartedly. All in all, Jubei only wished the child had been born in the age of the samurai, rather than this horrid present time.

It would be interesting to see how this child progressed as a swordsman. What little he had seen was decent, but in need of vast improvement.

At least he didn't trip on his wooden sword...

The second and third trip to the Chamber revealed how much work they were putting into this. Flitwick was very impressed that they only used magic for the bigger problems and did most of the things the mundane way.

It wasn't until after the fourth trip that Jamie activated the passcode system, which meant one Otaku member had to stand guard at each entrance to verify that the people coming in were members.

Needless to say Neville was very surprised when he learned the full truth of the Otaku club.

* * *

Jamie was elected to stand at the boy's entrance. It was a thankless job, and one had to be alert for long periods of time. Fortunately there were tons of branches nearby, and he was generally able to keep half an ear out for anyone coming around. Scruffy was with him, and he would bark if anyone new came from the forest or lake to the entrance.

Invisibility and disillusionment charms didn't cover smells.

There was a loud crack, and Jamie put down his book.

"Who's there?"

Luna Lovegood came walking up wearing a boy's costume.

"Hello Luna. What's the password?" asked Jamie. Luna was an odd duck, so it wouldn't be unusual for her to take the boy's entrance instead of the girls.

Everyone had agreed on the passcode, so if she didn't repeat it then she was a fake.

"Jesse and James."

Jamie narrowed his eyes.

"What is the true purpose of the Otaku club?"

Luna was a full-time member, so she would know this.

"To recreate magic out of fantasy and graphic novels," she replied.

"STUPEFY!" shouted Jamie. She went down like a rock. He hog-tied her and sent a patronus to get Flitwick.

All high ranking members of the club knew the charm as a way to get messages to the professor.

Flitwick came from the Chamber to find Jamie glaring at Luna's tied up body.

"What happened?"

"Impersonator. I can understand Luna forgetting the passcode, but she got the Otaku's mission statement wrong."

"Let's see who we're dealing with then," said Flitwick.

Anyone not escorted by a teacher into the Chamber's second entrance was given detention. Flitwick escorted all the boys to the main entrance while the girl's went through Myrtle's bathroom.

It kept Filch off their case, since the second entrance was just inside the forest next to the lake.

"Oh for the love of... Didn't he learn the last time he tried this?" said Jamie once the polyjuice wore off.

It was Draco Malfoy, royal pain extraordinaire.

He had tried to break into their meetings repeatedly, but he always got caught.

Draco woke up shortly after the potion wore off, and found an annoyed Flitwick looking at him.

"Detention with Filch, Mr. Malfoy."

"Why?" he whined. He hated detention with Filch.

"Because you came here without a teacher escorting you. You know the rules Mr. Malfoy. You aren't allowed in the forest without a teacher escorting you for a valid trip."

"What about him and his club?" demanded Draco.

"The Otaku club was given special dispensation to use the chamber for their activities in exchange for bringing anything of interest back to the surface. They are never allowed to use the main entrance without a teacher accompanying them, mainly me. It is perfectly within school rules to insure that only club members may enter a club room due to any activities within, and given the Otaku club's main goal of recreating magic never seen before, that puts them under this particular rule," said Flitwick calmly.

Jamie had, during the summer when he had free time, gone over every school rule pertaining to clubs and their meeting grounds. He had gone against every argument that would result in them losing the Chamber as a secondary meeting place and had come up with logical explanations as to why they should be allowed to keep it.

Even their passcode system was within the charter, as they were experimenting with new magic, which was notoriously dangerous.

Keeping club activities between members only was perfectly within the rules. Especially when it came to new or untested magic.

Draco scowled. He didn't want to devote any of his precious time in that silly club, which meant he couldn't get in as a member the normal way. And his father had all but demanded he find out what they did in the Chamber and retrieve anything belonging to Slytherin if found.

No way in hell would Salazar Slytherin build an underground chamber just for his pet snake, no matter _how_ big the bloody thing was.

Draco was dropped off with Snape, again with a warning that any attempts to go into the club room during a meeting without prior approval would meant instant detention.

Flitwick and the senior Otaku members planned to hit Malfoy with a 'misfired' spell that hadn't been seen before as a point.

* * *

Jamie walked through the Chamber, once again speaking only in snake tongue. A week before, Dumbledore had asked if they had found anything while exploring the chamber for misfired arrows.

So far the only thing they had ever found was the snake. However some of the members went in groups to see what else they could find.

Jamie had even gone deep into what was left of the basilisk's little home to see if Salazar had left anything in it, but had come up empty. Apparently the relief (which had since been destroyed, though they had left all the basilisk skins they found inside the room that the snake had slept in under a very strong ward) had been little more than a place for the snake to sleep in.

So he walked through the tunnels, talking to himself in snake tongue hoping for a reaction.

Finally he got a response.

He heard something farther in one of the smaller tunnels, barely tall enough for someone like Hagrid to go into without ducking his head. It sounded like a voice.

Walking calmly with his flashlight in hand, Jamie spoke again.

_**~Anyone there?~**_

"In here boy! Confound it all, I would tolerate that arrogant little prick Riddle at this point!" complained a voice in English. Proper English at that!

Jamie found a door, hidden in shadows. Opening it cautiously with his wooden replica of Senbonzakura (he always double checked openings with a stick or sword) he found a room with books, a small fireplace that was mostly for show, and a portrait above it.

"Finally! We can get the Slytherins off our case about the Chamber!" said Jamie.

Salazar Slytherin raised an eyebrow. Jamie recognized him from the relief they had destroyed.

"Am I to assume you are one of the brats who have been wrecking my cave?" he asked.

"No offense, but there were way too many snakes and the relief was just tacky."

"Looking back on it, you're probably right. In any event, what in blazes are you children doing down here anyway?"

"Fulfilling our club's charter. We can't really do much in the school unless we want those self-rightous idiots who think they know magic breathing down our necks, or that over inquisitive headmaster trying to steal our research notes. We barely keep him out of the loop as it is!" said Jamie.

"What's your club charter?"

Salazar had a few paintings in the castle, but very few would be able to recognize him if they saw it.

Mostly because his frog card had the wrong picture in it.

"The Otaku Club is a group of kids who want to expand the boundaries of magic beyond what is normally acceptable by the adults. We aren't just recreating what we've seen, we're trying to create new magic to change what others believe is considered possible! To be able to do this we needed to be free of interference from outsiders, namely the Ministry, and the Headmaster. So we put up a front using our little hobby as people who liked to dress up in strange and outlandish costumes, put on a few shows for special events, and just pretend to be experimenting with acceptable magic with a sympathetic teacher on our side."

"...It is a sad day indeed, when children who seek to further our understanding of magic must hide behind such a strange facade. How exactly can I help you?" asked Salazar. Hearing such an impassioned speech had given him all the reason he needed to help them.

If he read the group right, then they wouldn't allow the more important artifacts out of the Chamber as long as the noisy Headmaster was still in charge or the Ministry restricted new magic.

How could he not help such sneaky students?

Jamie explained his intention to hand over a talking portrait of Salazar himself to his house, thus getting some of the demands from his snakes to drop dramatically.

(They complained that only a Slytherin should be 'privileged' to explore his infamous Chamber.)

Handing over a portrait of their founder would shut them up quite effectively. Salazar approved of this.

So he gave Jamie the location of his other portrait that had survived (but was in dire need of a cleaning) to give to them.

As far as the snakes would know, he got it from the Chamber.

Plus with how the war had gone before, it would give them a way to overhear any plans against them from the snakes den without having to force the current snakes in the club to surrender their house loyalty. Something he didn't mind doing.


	14. Chapter 14

It was Halloween, and the uproar over his 'discovery' had only now started to die down. The complaints of the snake house had finally dropped to a mere trickle upon receiving the portrait of their founder...and he was not impressed at the least when he heard the ramblings of their so-called blood purity.

Jamie hated lying, but he could live with half-truths.

He had found Salazar's portrait, but he didn't need to say how.

Jamie pinched his arm to remind himself that they had a show to put on, and he was to be the star this time around.

No one else could bend around like Jack had in the movie, except for the gymnastics club (sadly one of the least popular ones, though Jamie thought more should join it). So he had landed the role...well that and everyone thought he suited Jack for some reason.

He adjusted his tie, made sure Salazar (who had expressed enough of an interest that one of the Otaku club Slytherins had brought the portrait to the great hall for him to watch) had a good view, before he signaled the members to start the music.

Neville, who was in the play as the scientist who created Sally and later the skeletal reindeer, nodded and hit play on the magically-run stereo.

Once the rather creepy music began to play, the Otaku club started to hum before breaking into the song.

"_Boys and girls of every age_

_Wouldn't you like to see something strange?_

_Come with us and you will see_

_This, our town of Halloween_

_This is Halloween, this is Halloween_

_Pumpkins scream in the dead of night_

(At this point the twins activated a spell that made the pumpkins give off an unearthly scream, making several jump.)

_This is Halloween, everybody make a scene_

_Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright_

_It's our town, everybody scream_

_In this town of Halloween_

_I am the one hiding under your bed_

_Teeth ground sharp and eyes glowing red_

_I am the one hiding under your stairs_

_Fingers like snakes and spiders in my hair_

_This is Halloween, this is Halloween_

_Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!_

_In this town we call home_

_Everyone hail to the pumpkin song_

_In this town, don't we love it now?_

_Everybody's waiting for the next surprise_

_Round that corner, man hiding in the trash can_

_Something's waiting now to pounce, and how you'll..._

_Scream! This is Halloween_

_Red 'n' black, slimy green_

_Aren't you scared?_

_Well, that's just fine_

(Several of the girls rode in on brooms and looking like the muggle version of a witch, green skin included.)

_Say it once, say it twice_

_Take a chance and roll the dice_

_Ride with the moon in the dead of night_

_Everybody scream, everybody scream_

_In our town of Halloween!_

_I am the clown with the tear-away face_

_Here in a flash and gone without a trace_

_I am the "who" when you call, "Who's there?"_

_I am the wind blowing through your hair_

_I am the shadow on the moon at night_

_Filling your dreams to the brim with fright_

_This is Halloween, this is Halloween_

_Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!_

_Halloween! Halloween!_

_Tender lumplings everywhere_

_Life's no fun without a good scare_

_That's our job, but we're not mean_

_In our town of Halloween_

_In this town_

_Don't we love it now?_

_Everybody's waiting for the next surprise_

_Skeleton Jack might catch you in the back_

_And scream like a banshee_

_Make you jump out of your skin_

_This is Halloween, everybody scream_

_Wont' ya please make way for a very special guy_

_Our man Jack is King of the Pumpkin patch_

_Everyone hail to the Pumpkin King, now!_

(Quite a few people cried out in alarm as Jamie lit himself up with harmless blue bell flames. He had cast a flame-freezing spell on all his clothes just in case anyway.)

_This is Halloween, this is Halloween_

_Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!_

_In this town we call home_

_Everyone hail to the pumpkin song_

_La la la la-la-la la-la-la,WHEEEEEE!"_

Once the shock was over, everyone cheered, including Salazar. Since they didn't really have time to do the entire movie, they had opted to just do the opening song instead.

Re-enacting the opening sequence to _Nightmare Before Christmas_ was a total hit with the school, as it set the tone for the holiday quite nicely.

Judging by the way the school reacted, they could probably get a free day declared so they could do the entire movie. And they could easily rope the Drama club into it, because he knew they would love to help out with the sets like last year.

He could see Remus clapping the hardest up at the staffing table.

* * *

Jamie went to see their current DADA teacher, Remus Lupin. He had tea with the werewolf at least once a month, though he took care to avoid doing so near or shortly after full moon.

"That was a splendid show you put on for Halloween."

"It helps that this is the quietest year I've had so far. No weird mysteries to deal with, and Hermione has been suitably distracted by taking too many courses to bother me about studying."

"You know about her time-turner, don't you?" Remus said dryly.

"Kind of hard not to, since I'm friends with Luna and she is quite nosy when she wants to be."

"Wait, what do you mean the quietest year?" said Remus.

"Year one, there was some obscure warning to avoid the third corridor and it was made in front of a bunch of rebellious and overly curious children. Turned out that Dumbledore laid a trap for the possessed DADA teacher for something called the Philosopher's Stone. Year two, the basilisk inside the chamber is set loose and I had to call in back-up from the base to get rid of it. This year, nothing, aside from dealing with the snakes because we got the Chamber for our club activities before they could strip it of anything of worth," said Jamie.

And Salazar had not been pleased by that attitude _one_ bit.

Remus drank his tea. That wasn't a good thing, to be honest. If this pattern kept up, Jamie would be in for a rough four years. He was barely keeping up with his three electives as it was.

COMC, Runes and advanced Transfiguration were very time consuming, homework wise. According to Jamie, he picked those because Nicholas had suggested it for when he finally took up alchemy after graduating. Apparently after a thorough test by Flamel, he felt Jamie was already at a high enough level using numbers to skip Arithimancy.

The two enjoyed their quiet cup of tea, as it was one of the few things Jamie did that didn't involve movement of any kind, aside from lifting the tea glass.

* * *

Jamie was on guard again, and another group came up.

"Passcode?"

The boy, who was in Jessie's outfit started it off. The girl was in James, as it was a well known fact the two did cross-play a lot and the only way to do that properly was with both genders there.

"Prepare for trouble!" said Luna.

"And make it double!" said Neville.

"To protect the world from devastation," said Luna.

"To unite all people within our nation," said Neville grinning.

"To defend the evils of truth and love," said Luna.

"To extend our reach to the stars above!" said Neville.

"Luna!"

"Neville!"

"Team Rocket blasting off at the speed of light!" said Luna.

"Surrender now or prepare to fight!"

"Meowth, that's right!" they said in unison.

Jamie was grinning outright.

"Go on in!"

"We really need another passcode," said Neville.

"I was thinking Sailor Moon's speech for next year," admitted Jamie.

* * *

Yagyu stared at the bunch of Otakus, most of which had proper kendo gear and wooden swords. They were about the right size for sword play, but not for harming anyone.

Flitwick was off to the side, observing the lessons and keeping an eye on the spell research Neville was doing.

If he could trust Pomona he would have brought her in to this particular meeting personally, as today Neville was testing out his new 'rose whip'. Finding the right spell combination to turn an ordinary rose into a thorn whip had been quite the challenge. No doubt she would want in on such a discovery.

Jubei barked orders, and as one, the Otaku club took their stances and fought using only the five moves he had shown them. He had to iron out their moves before they could really learn how to fight, and swordsmanship was best learned in years, not months. And these children showed considerable more enthusiasm than the others who asked for help. They rarely complained about having to sit on their legs for an hour to get in the proper state of mind.

"Potter! Adjust your left foot more! Having that far up will decrease the power of your blow!" barked Jubei.

"Sir!"

Jamie slid his foot back some. To be fair their was a bit of a leak problem in the cavern, and his foot slipped a little in the wet floor.

They were still trying to water proof the ceiling.

The old samurai floated between pairs, correcting mistakes with a critical eye. Considering how hard it was to even find a decent teacher in England, they didn't complain.

While they worked, they chatted quietly.

One of the rules of the club was to keep the sound at a reasonable level, as the chamber proved to have quite the acoustic range. Anything higher than a low shout carried almost to the entrance. When asked, Salazar admitted it was a way to insure that they wouldn't have to come all the way into the Chamber to kill the basilisk. It was designed so that the rooster could be halfway down the tunnel near the lake and still kill the snake. Or, if they were feeling particularly vindictive to the bird they could toss it down the bathroom entrance and let it crow itself while it fell to it's death. Either way the snake would be dead and the party would have been perfectly safe.

Learning that, Flitwick added a few one-way sound dampening charms, so that they could hear the outside, but the inside couldn't hear them as well.

According to Salazar, he was just repairing the original charms...the founder of Slytherin didn't want any unexpected visitors.

When asked by a baffled Slytherin house why he allowed them to use his famous Chamber, they got a very surprising answer in return.

"_They are the only club in this entire school that ignores this whole house rivalry nonsense, and is the only place where I don't hear a single word about 'blood purity' or the Ministry's idiot rulings on spells. Frankly I find it a breath of fresh air, if you'll excuse the poor terms, from listening to you lot talk about your families and how you'll manipulate the Ministry through gold once you graduate,"_ said Salazar flatly when asked.

The fact that the Otaku club was considered one of the most exclusive ones in the school and still managed to keep the Headmaster in the dark about what it was really about was considered a feat in itself.

Which was why so many Slytherins kept trying to infiltrate it, if only to see real ambition and cunning in action.

A few even succeeded, once they found a way to actually pass the Otaku test. Those were mostly half-bloods though. No one like Draco had managed to get in, no matter how hard he tried.

* * *

"So where are you going to hit at Hogsmeade this weekend?" asked Neville.

"Bookstore, probably. When they learned how much they could make by selling manga to the Otaku club, especially the lesser known series like _Necromancer_ and _Silver Diamond_, they couldn't order fast enough. Combined with our productions, the Otaku club has been having a boom in membership. Plus there's our friends the drama club and the store that will hopefully open next month that sells cosplay costumes and copies of the ones we use in our productions. I'm surprised the headmaster hasn't picked up on their true activities just yet."

"Huh?"

Jamie smirked.

"Let me put it this way. There's a reason why the Drama club and the Otaku club get along so well. They were founded by the same person."

"Who?"

"A Ravenclaw witch named Mariah. She found a way to hide training for the inevitable wars that would happen by putting them in plain sight. The Otaku club is the spell researchers/fighters, and most of us go into the Unspeakables and lend a helping wand in our projects. Drama club is for our spies and informers. They use some of our members to learn how to act in all situations to get information back to the group. Combined with my military contacts, and we have a force that will wipe out any opposition once our cover is partially removed."

"So all that spell practice down in the Chamber?"

"Practice for when Voldie comes back. We aren't stupid, and that locket I found by accident in Sirius' house is a good indicator to how he survived when he killed my parents."

And Flitwick had been beyond pissed, to say nothing of how Salazar reacted to the news. Flitwick knew of horcruxes from his goblin parent, as it was common knowledge among the goblins about the cursed items.

They came across them from time to time, mostly in Egypt. And every one they came across was destroyed ASAP. Learning Voldemort had made more than one had the goblins going through the London vaults, those that had been open during his time as the Dark Lord, just to be sure there weren't any inside.

So far they had found Hufflepuff's Cup, and had removed the dark taint from it with a vengeance. The Hogwarts Founder's Society, a place where the Founder's Artifacts were preserved and restored to peak condition, would be getting a few surprises from the goblin clans soon.

(Salazar had identified the necklace Jamie found by mistake as one that he had given his daughter. Needless to say if he were alive Tom Marvolo Riddle AKA Voldemort would be disowned so fast it would make his head spin for daring to use that as his horcrux.)

Neville blinked.

"The Drama club was made by the same person who made the Otaku club?" he said incredulous.

"Actually it was made by her older sister Rachel. Also a Ravenclaw, though from what I heard she had better grades and was also in the musical group."

"So are there any other clubs masqurading in plain sight?"

"Art club, a small portion of the music club, flying club and some of the chess club," said Jamie.

"Seriously?"

"You do realize I'm only telling you this because as a pureblood with lots of good connections we might need them in the future, right?"

"I knew that going in. Having the prospective heir to an ancient family means you have a decent defense against Dumbledore should he catch wind of what your club really does. I mostly joined because I knew that the Otaku wouldn't mock my love of plants," said Neville.

Which was true, as they had put him to work on plant-based weaponry from various anime. So far they had managed to come up with a workable Rose Whip, and were currently trying to replicate the tree thing from _Law of Ueki,_ or at the very least the Mokuton from _Naruto. _ So far, no luck had come of it, though they were making great progress thanks to Neville's input and Jamie's willingness to help buy plants.

Plants that were given to Neville to keep, as he had the best green thumb outside Professor Sprout.

Jamie grinned at him as they headed to the bookstore.


	15. Chapter 15

Jamie sat in the Chamber on one of the new couches they had installed. Hearing Neville's disbelief at the number of clubs in on the secret, he realized that not many had figured out who did what behind the headmaster's back.

Then again, not many had sniper and later counter-espionage training like he did. And Occulmency training was one of the first things Flitwick taught them once they got to see the really good stuff in the club. At the very least everyone who worked in the Chamber had learned Gai's little trick to avoid the Sharingan from _Naruto._

Surprisingly, neither Snape nor Dumbledore had realized the trick to avoid having their mind read. Since _Naruto_ was a highly popular series, practically every Otaku had either read it or heard about it. Treating legilmency as the Sharingan with Yamanaka techniques thrown in had been a brilliant move on the Charm teacher's part.

Salazar got hooked on it once Jamie explained what a shinobi was, and was currently on book 29, where Shippuden officially started. Apparently the shinobi lifestyle appealed to him greatly.

"Alright kiddies, today I am going to explain our affiliate clubs, or those with members who agree with us and help us out occasionally."

"What brought this on?" asked Flitwick.

"Neville's surprise at the fact that certain members of the art club learned to draw maps from word of mouth," said Jamie.

"Carry on," said Flitwick.

Jamie was currently dressed as Iruka, including the hair style.

"To start with, we have the Otaku and Drama clubs. Now who among us is aware of the Drama clubs secondary objective? Anyone?"

Paul raised his hand.

"Spies and infiltrators. They give the art club descriptions for the maps," he said.

"Correct," said Jamie, making a note of this on the board. Under Otaku was their role in a fight, namely that of spell research and middle line attackers. Drama had spies, infiltration, and assassination under theirs. Under art club was maps and cartography.

As Jamie wrote out the various clubs and the few that were affiliated with the Otaku, even loosely, the others began to see a pattern emerge. Should all the groups ally together, they could take out Voldemort and his Death Eaters in a month, if not two. The issue was finding a way to get the message out.

"And now for our second agenda today. We need someone to restart the Announcers and Radio club. As amusing as Lee's biased commentary is, we need a communication's group for the others. We might be able to wrangle Lee in as the Communication's Officer if we bring the Twins in on this," said Jamie seriously.

"Question! What brought all this on?" yelled Jenny from the back.

"Finding those two horcruxes made me realize that Voldemort (one of the first thing he did as Club President was break that flinching habit of theirs) is most likely going to show up again, and we'll need to be ready. And let's not forget Dumbledore and his lax attitude towards progress. If he had gotten his head out of his ass sooner, Fudge would have been kicked out and we might have had a half-blood for Minister by now. We're still children, and we need to enjoy it while we can, but that doesn't mean we can't also prepare just in case the worst happens and he returns," said Jamie.

"I agree with him. By linking the clubs, we might actually be able to change things around here," said Flitwick.

No one asked what he meant by that, as they all knew the headaches he had to deal with for being part goblin. Because of his heritage, Flitwick and those adept at money-management were the financial officers of the group. Charlie had already made a vault specifically for them to use, and had left quite a large fortune inside for his grandson to use for his club.

It was how Jamie had paid for those rare plants.

"Now, who wants me to do a basic overview on how each club contributes to the whole?" asked Jamie. Flitwick had given him twenty points for figuring it out with no help from him. He had been around to meet the Otaku club founder after all, and her...unique...view of the world.

Quite a few hands shot up, they wanted to know who else was in on their group, but wasn't in it.

"At the top of the pack with the majority of those in on our secret is the Otaku club, followed by at least half of the Drama club. As a matter of fact the new cosplay shop that's about to open up is actually owned and run by former Otaku and Drama members and sponsored by the founder of the club. Next is the Charms club, as several of you already know and are apart of. Charms is labeled under the defender and front line attacker grouping in a fight, as we all know Flitwick has been training them well. Some, however, were too steeped in pure blood belief to bring into our secret.

"The fourth club is the Art and what little of the music group that trusts Flitwick. The art club takes the descriptions off the Drama club and makes maps and guides for us. The music group is currently disorganized, but if we get a club for announcers going it should collect into a fairly decent communications team. Next is the small science club, most of which is in cahoots with us, but is too small to make any real change to society. It's full of muggleborns and those raised in the normal society until they reach the school. They're the ones in charge of educating some of our pureblood friends in technology, and most of them have been able to manufacture a magically-run radio set to communicate. I've heard they're responsible for the microphone Lee uses in the quidditch games. We also have a few in the Chess club who have managed to become adept at moving people around like chess pieces in a fight.

"Last but not least is the Quidditch club, and those not on the teams are our final line of defense and aerial support. Some are on our side, but most of them are clueless lions who just want to act like jocks, no offense to our Gryffindor members," said Jamie.

"None taken Jamie!" shouted Emily with good humor. She was a year above him.

"I have worked out a decent graph showing how each club I've talked about works with the others, and what their role would be in a military situation like a restart of the Blood Wars."

"What are the Blood Wars?" asked Paul, confused by the term. Judging by the looks on the others, he wasn't the only one.

"Sorry, that's just the term I've come up with for the whole 'purge the mudblood' mentality Voldemort had. I thought Blood Wars was an appropriate name for the years he spent terrorizing Europe," said Jamie sheepishly.

"Actually, that is the most accurate name I've ever heard for the war. I think it's worth trying to get the Ministry to add it to the history books," said Flitwick with a look in his eye that they recognized as him considering something interesting.

There was a saying that for some reason wizards had never heard...those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. For some reason the Ministry had banned teaching the 'Blood Wars' in Hogwarts, mostly because they feared the parents who lived through it would come down on them. Even Dumbledore supported this silly idea, as he feared that it would upset the children.

Jamie had other ideas, and had already asked his grandfather to look up Auror and police reports of the time period so they could hopefully dissuade some of the Slytherins from joining the Death Eaters once the war restarted, as he fully believed it would.

The only issue was getting it together in a cohesive pattern enough to make it into a history book. Charlie had a lead on who could write it...namely the founder of the Otaku club. He knew Jamie was eager to meet her, even if she was nuts.

* * *

"Another year has gone! And now, the points need their final awarding! Slytherin is in the bottom, with 525 points. Gryffindor is barely above them with 540. Ravenclaw, in second place is at 650. Finally we have our new House Cup recipients, Hufflepuff, with 675 points!" said Dumbledore grandly. Inwardly he was frowning...very rarely did any house other than Slytherin or Ravenclaw manage to keep Snape off their case long enough to beat the snake house.

What he didn't know was that Jamie had promised to give him sanctuary on the base in the event that the war restarted. A safe haven away from Dumbledore and Voldemort both, and all he had to do was the same thing he did for Pomprey...make medical potions once a month. The rest he could use for his own research.

Considering how annoying Dumbledore could be at the best of times and how callously Voldemort treated his inner circle...there was little chance Snape _wouldn't _chose to hide on the base. He was a natural born Slytherin after all, and he could tell who the winner of this unofficial three-way would end should Voldemort reappear.

Badly, for everyone but the Veterans and those stupid enough to cross the Otaku club. Snape had the...pleasure...of meeting the founder, and the girl had been absolutely insane as she kept comparing him to a muggle actor named 'Alan Rickman'*, whoever that was. She also kept hitting on him, an act that he had always felt somewhat uncomfortable with.

* * *

Jamie let out an unmanly squeal when he heard who his grandfather had tracked down for him. The former Ravenclaw witch who created the Otaku club and had graduated with full honors once they got her head out of the books had come to the base!

Suddenly there was a shushin-like effect, only with cherry blossom petals and sparkles.

"Yes I am that awesome!" said a bushy-haired brunette with her hair in a pony tail, old wire glasses and dressed like Anko Mitarashi, thankfully with a bra underneath.

"Sakura-sama!" said Jamie.

Because of how many enemies she had made of Voldemort's inner circle (Lucius couldn't even _say_ her name without many, many swear words between it and usually an insult) she went by her pen name online in the normal world. The only time she used her real name was with her fellow Otaku, but most of the time they called her by the first part of her pen name.

Sakura cackled as she ruffled his hair.

"So I hear from a certain bird eye that you need help introducing the last magical war without alerting the headmaster."

Jamie nodded as he outlined his plan to the insane authoress. She had gotten into writing shortly after leaving school, and was currently the best selling fiction writer among her Ravenclaw set. Before they got to work, he did have to ask about the name she mentioned.

"You didn't know? Charlie Potter was known as Hawk-Eye because he never missed a target with his rifle and his animagus form is a red-tailed hawk, according to another magical who served with him during WWII. Of course he's still a bit rusty since he forgot about magic for ten years, but from what I heard he's back in the swing of things," said Sakura amused.

She researched things that interested her, so when Charlie asked her for help she looked into him by asking some of the old dogs that had worked with him in the past.

While she had a good memory, it only applied to things that interested her. Her primary school teachers had despaired of ever getting her out of those blasted books.

Jamie walked behind her, star-struck. Truly, she was an Otaku queen...

* * *

As Sakura set up her precious laptop, she chatted with the cheerful Jamie. It was actually one of the rare times he dropped all his military training and acted like the teenager he was. Charlie had even dropped in on the two and had left grinning. Jamie was on his way to his first crush, how cute!

"So they're actually turning Twilight and Luna into humans?" said Jamie. They were discussing the soon-to-be-released MLP movie, Equestria Girls.

Personally he was a bigger fan of the chaotic Earth mare Pinkie Pie than Twilight.

"Yup. And I heard that the songs are supposed to be suuuuper addictive! I found this rare promo of one of them, want to hear it?"

"Yeah!"

She grinned as it started to play. Within seconds he was hooked on the song, which was quite catchy.

"Suddenly I have the perfect idea for our Halloween performance!" said Jamie grinning.

"I hear the movie comes out next month. Want to go see a viewing of it? You can bring a few friends if you want!"

"Yeah!"

* * *

Neville took one look at the dance and when he heard the song he knew. This was going to be Jamie's Halloween suggestion.

"You know it's going to be a hassle getting that choreographed to just eight people right?" he sighed.

"Why eight?" asked Paul.

"I know how his mind works, we share a dorm after all. Knowing him, he'll have eight people, two from each house. A boy and a girl from each house, and he'll choose by their voice," said Neville.

Jamie nodded with a grin. Neville had been his best friend since Jamie revealed that his grandfather had healed his parents.

That was probably why Charlie had asked Augusta to teach Jamie how to interact with the stuffy purebloods, as he was so out of touch with them that it wasn't even funny anymore.

Living as a muggle for nearly twenty years had irrevocably rewritten his belief systems. He had learned alongside Jamie how to use technology, and the Otaku club had long since found a way around the issue of electronics and magic not being good bedfellows.

The main issue was that those same electronics had trouble adapting to a fully magical environment where it was impossible to find plug-ins.

They currently had some of the more tech-savvy muggleborns trying to adapt a device not unlike a lightning rod to absorb magic and redirect it to the devices.

* * *

*For those of you who have never watched the movies, Alan Rickman is the actor who played Snape. He has also played Marvin, the depressed robot in _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, _the sheriff of Nottingham from the version of _Robin Hood_ that also had Sean Connery as the king, and the fake Spock in _Galaxy Quest _with Tim Allen as the main character.


	16. Chapter 16

"So you're going to show the kids how to set up a speaker system in the school?" asked Charlie.

"Yeah. I know the basics, but this gives them some practical experience. Jamie-kun, is it ready yet?" she yelled out.

"Almost Sakura-sama!" he shouted back.

Charlie and the other vets found it highly amusing to watch Jamie's first crush act out. The fact this 'Sakura' was willing to humor him only made it funnier.

There was a slight blare of the sound, before there was nothing.

"Right...time to test the music," said Sakura. She whipped out a CD that had belonged to her grandfather who had gotten her hooked on the group.

She selected track eight, and the music started to play.

"_Well how do you do young Willie MacBride_

_Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside_

_And rest for a while in the warm summer sun_

_I've been working all day and I'm nearly done_

_I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen_

_When you joined the great fallen of 1916_

_I hope you died well, and I hope you died clean_

_Young Willie MacBride, was it slow and obscene_

_Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly  
_

_Did they sound the dead march as they lowered you down_

_Did the band play the last post and chorus_

_Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest_

_Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind_

_In some fateful heart, is your memory enshrined_

_Although you died back in 1916_

_In that fateful heart, are you forever nineteen_

_Or are you a stranger without even a name_

_Enclosed in forever behind a glass frame_

_In an old photograph, torn and battered and stained_

_And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame_

_Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly_

_Did they sound the dead march when they lowered you down_

_Did the band play the last post and chorus_

_Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest_

_The sun now it shines on the green fields of France_

_There's a warm summer breeze, it makes the red poppies dance_

_And look how the sun shines from under the clouds_

_There's no gas, no gunfire, no barbed wire, no guns firing now_

_But here in this graveyard is still no man's land_

_The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand_

_To man's blind indifference to his fellow man_

_To a whole generation that were butchered and damned_

_Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly_

_Did they sound the dead march when they lowered you down_

_Did the band play the last post and chorus_

_Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest_

_Now young Willie MacBride, I can't help but wonder why_

_Do all those who lie here know why they died_

_Did they believe when they answered the call_

_Did they really believe that this war would end wars_

_Well the sorrows, the suffering, the glory, the pain_

_The killing and dying was all done in vain_

_Young Willie MacBride, it all happened again_

_And again, and again, and again, and again_

_Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly_

_Did they sound the dead march when they lowered you down_

_Did the band play the last post and chorus_

_Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest"_

(From the Irish Tenors CD _Ellis Island_, track 8. I thought it was rather fitting, don't you?)

Sakura was rather surprised to see a few of the vets actually crying after hearing the song.

"Who was that singing?" asked Charlie. He was one of the many who were misty eyed after that fitting tribute to a fallen soldier.

"Irish Tenors. My gramps got me hooked on the trio, and I listen to it occasionally. I even know some of the words by heart, even if I don't know the meaning of the Irish words in track nine."

Jamie somehow managed to convince Sakura to come visit them in the Chamber of Secrets to say hi to the Otaku club. Considering she was the one who created it, she agreed.

A few weeks after Sakura's appearance, he got an invitation from the twins to a Quidditch game. As it turned out, Sakura had one in the same area, so they decided to sit next to each other.

Besides, Jamie was bringing a camera so he could properly record Lucius's expression when he saw Sakura in the same area he was in.

* * *

"AH! Smell that country air! Nothing like it!" said Sakura pleased. Because of her Irish roots, they were sticking close to the Irish area instead of the Bulgarian.

Well, that and according to her they might look the other way if she slipped the underage kids a little beer.

Sakura was wearing a green shirt with a shamrock bearing Ireland's colors saying "Irish and Proud!" and a simple pair of blue jeans.

The second she graduated she ditched the robes and hat and went completely muggle outside of cosplay.

Jamie was wearing an Akatsuki cloak and was currently looking like a younger Itachi Uchiha, complete with nail polish, necklace and a pair of colored contact that gave him a fake Sharingan. Sakura couldn't stop cackling at the looks on people's faces when they saw the red eyes staring back at them dispassionately.

He was an instant hit with his fellow Otaku, who immediately started quoting Naruto to Sakura's immense amusement. After the third time she ducked behind a tree and came out looking like Anko Mitarashi, because she was better at being crazy than trying to act like Konan.

Besides, the only one that suited Itachi was Kisame, and she wasn't turning blue just for a joke. Finally they came to the spot Sakura had reserved a week ahead. She immediately set her CD player down on the grass while Jamie went to work on the tents. Unlike the rest of the wizards, hers was set to silence almost anything.

About the only sound that would come clear through the spell was the sound of a real scream. She had serious difficulty sleeping with too much light and sound.

And since she had set the tent to have a partition in it, she could split it with Jamie and not offend Charlie. She wasn't a cradle robber, despite all the joking the boys did back at base.

"So how are you going to break the ice with our 'neighbors'?" asked Jamie.

"Easy. Hand over the CD player for a minute."

Jamie dutifully handed it over and she popped in a by-now familiar CD. She immediately cycled through the tracks to number 16, which happened to be a classic Irish song called 'Danny Boy'.

And with that, people started to congregate near their tent and share food while singing along to the music.

"I'll admit, that was ingenious. Using music to score free food and beer," said Jamie impressed.

"Call me lazy if you want, but I am not cooking food when I can easily bum it off others who are more than happy to share for a bit of free music," said Sakura with a smirk.

"And the fact the beer is free?"

"We're Irish. Drinking beer is mandatory, even if I rarely drink to begin with. Here's a tip about most wizards...they're idiots," said Sakura.

Seeing her bum free food off unsuspecting witches and wizards without their notice, Jamie had to agree. They didn't even realize what she was doing even after she left their areas.

It did explain why she hadn't really packed any food.

"So how much longer until the game starts?" asked Jamie.

"About four more hours. Go explore Jamie, I'll stay here."

"Are you kidding me? Have you seen this mosh pit?" asked Jamie with a single raised eyebrow.

Sakura snickered. She tossed him a red jewel that was on a necklace. It was clearly a cosplay item, one from a very popular series called _Fate/Stay Night_.

"Just say 'Home' and the jewel will take you straight back to the tent. It's spelled with a auto-find function that locates anything that was spelled alongside it, which in this case happens to be my Tohsaka and Archer costumes."

Jamie nodded and left to get some water. He had a small camera in his pocket and he got quite a few amusing pictures of the looks on people's faces when they saw his fake sharingan eyes. Best of all no one recognized him outside fellow Otaku, who stopped him a few times to talk.

Once he had two buckets of water, he said "Home."

The jewel lit up and levitated. He followed the direction it pointed in and found himself back at the tent in ten minutes.

"Impressive. Now, do you know how the jewel was able to work like that?"

"No idea. The best thing I can think of is that the magic in the jewel called to the costumes," admitted Jamie.

"Correct. That effect is known as sympathetic magic. When two magical spells resonate or merge, it's known as sympathetic magic. A good example would be the jewel and the costumes. One of the harder to find examples of this is something called 'Priori Incantatum', in which two wands with wood from the same tree or cores from the same source connect. The end result is that the wizard or witch who overpowers the other can force the 'losing' wand to reveal all the spells they had cast for as long as the 'winner' can maintain the connection. I've heard rumors that anyone killed by the Killing Curse comes back as a pale shade during this effect."

Jamie listened with rapt attention. Aside from the random things Sakura did on base, she also taught him about magic and gave him clues for his pet projects.

As they chatted, they snacked on food pilfered from other camps. Eventually there was an hour before the big game, so Sakura had an amusing idea. Since she had gotten tired of people stumbling when they saw Jamie's red eyes (not to mention they were getting rather tired from the contacts) then they would go to the stadium in matching costumes.

Specifically that of Rin Tohsaka and her servant Archer/Counter Guardian EMIYA.

Just to be safe, Jamie was going to keep the jewel around his wrist hidden under the right arm sleeve. That way if they were separated he could find her again.

She had spelled both costumes and jewel at the same time, so she could find where she put them by using even one item.

They switched costumes (Sakura charmed his glasses so they were still on his face, but were all but invisible) and headed towards the stadium. Sakura looked surprisingly comfortable with the twin ponytails.

Seeing the dropped jaws of wizards at the short skirt that went along with the outfit and her considerable bust...(Jamie quickly changed his line of thought lest he got into trouble with his idol) well it was little wonder several men tripped over themselves on the way there.

Seeing the scandalized looks of the women only made her chuckle with dark humor.

* * *

Narcissa Malfoy ne Black hated Quidditch. She couldn't stand the sport and always made her husband pay dearly for dragging her to the damn stadium every bloody year for the World Cup.

But this year she at least got to enjoy her revenge a little earlier than normal, in the form of a woman her 'husband' absolutely loathed because of how thoroughly she had humiliated him during the last war.

Mariah 'Sakura Hikari' was back in England. And the look on Lucius' face was priceless.

Especially with how she managed to shove her son Draco's face into her considerable bust. Narcissa snorted in amusement at the embarrassment on Draco's face.

"You haven't changed a bit Anne," said Narcissa.

"Cissy! Still putting up with Lucy?" smirked Sakura.

"Unfortunately. Who's your little tag-along?" asked Narcissa with amusement.

"Cissy, meet Jamie Potter. Jamie, meet my favorite female Black, Narcissa."

"It's Malfoy now," Narcissa reminded her.

"Does it have to be Malfoy? You were more fun as a Black," said Sakura innocently.

"Oddly enough, I happen to agree with that," said Narcissa dryly.

"Shall I keep you from dying of absolute boredom while the boys watch this silly little game?"

"And watch my husband turn into a human tomato from repressed rage? Absolutely!" said Narcissa with glee. At the very least she wouldn't be bored to tears.

The only time Sakura paused in their quiet discussion was to bet with the Weasly twins, who had offered Jamie tickets only to learn he had already accepted someone else's offer.

They, like Jamie and Sakura, were dressed up. Specifically as the Hitachin twins from _Ouran High School Host Club_. The fact they could pull off the same act those twins played in the series was a bonus.

She mostly did it because Bagman had a nasty habit of reneging on his debts, and wouldn't hesitate to steal from such a nice pair of boys like Fred and George.

Besides, she offered them five to one odds. They weren't about to pass up on that!

* * *

Jamie was still half-asleep when Sakura came into his 'area' of the tent and shook him awake.

"What time is it?"

"Almost one. Looks like Lucy and his friends didn't appreciate Bulgaria winning, so they're inciting a riot. Now, I happen to have some tranquilizer darts and I know you always pack your grandpa's sniper rifle with you in your expandable bag as a precaution, so here's my question... Care for some moving target practice?"

"What grade are the tranqs?" asked Jamie, all sleep leaving his eyes.

"Strong enough to knock them out cold for several hours, with a mild hangover. Death Eaters are cowards, they won't think to help their downed friends if they can escape themselves," said Sakura.

"Can we get to a high ground?"

"I can do you one better. I have a flying carpet."

"Didn't those go out of style?" asked Jamie, switching to his Roy costume out of habit, as the borrowed Archer costume was a bit too big for him to aim properly.

"More comfortable than a broom, and easier to spell with a notice-me-not charm. Besides, do you have any idea how hard it is to get comfortable riding a broom?"

"Let's go," said Jamie.

Sakura followed his lead without a word, and they took to the air on her carpet which had sat so innocently near the front of the door.

After all, since they went out of style decades ago in favor of brooms, most wizards wouldn't think to check the carpet for magic aside from a few to keep it pristine.

It made a very amusing defense with a single activating word.

And unlike most magicals, she knew what a gun was and how to use it. The only issue being that she couldn't aim a pistol worth a damn.

Which was why she had a sniper rifle instead. So much easier to aim.

They took to the sky, and both scowled when they saw the muggles in the air.

"Jamie, how angry would your grandfather be if I handed you some live rounds to shoot their kneecaps with?" she asked with a growl.

"Depends... are these men criminals or are they drunken idiots who are hurting others for no reason," he replied.

"Do you know what is required for a Dark Mark, let alone the whole kit and caboodle?"

"No."

"Good, keep it that way. Let's just say that they were all marked, and that I'll accept full blame. Remember to aim to incapacitate, not kill," said Sakura.

"Yes ma'am!"

Jamie set up his rifle and used the scope to aim at the knees of the fools holding the campground manager and his family up in the air. Sakura had her wand out to catch them.

Five shots later, and a quick mobicorpus spell on the muggles, and the Death Eaters were in too much pain to consider apparating away.

Jamie took careful aim with his tranqs and started shooting. Sakura only had twenty doses...and only five Death Eaters got away before someone was stupid enough to set off Voldemort's calling card in the sky. They later learned Ron Weasly had his wand stolen during the game.

Once they packed up the tent and managed to keep the Aurors from learning who shot the Death Eaters, they left immediately for the base.

Charlie was up waiting for both of them waiting for a debriefing from the two.


	17. Chapter 17

Charlie had them stand while he sat in his office, which had pictures of Jamie and even James and Lily shortly after their wedding.

"Report, both of you."

Jamie went first, and Sakura took queues from him. By the time they were done, Charlie's face had become stony, but it wasn't a cold look either.

"Well, I wasn't expecting this to happen on what should have been a night out. All I can say is...welcome back, both of you. And Jamie, well done on those shots."

Jamie beamed at his grandfather. It was rare to hear praise like that.

"Though I do have one question...where did you get the tranquilizers?" said Charlie to Sakura.

"Ask not what the fourth wall grants, for what it can take away is most dear," said Sakura without hesitating.

"Huh?" said Charlie.

"When an author or character breaks the unofficial 'fourth wall', that means they are talking to the world outside the story. It's common in fanfiction," explained Jamie.

Sakura nodded emphatically.

"In other words you can't say right?" asked Charlie rubbing his temple. He could feel the migraine already.

The two nodded in unison.

"Forget it. Go get some sleep you two," said Charlie tiredly.

They had been up all night avoiding the Aurors, because Jamie couldn't lie very well to people in authority.

About the only exception was Dumbledore, and that was because Charlie quite loudly claimed he wasn't an authority figure worth respecting.

Anyone who believes that only non-lethal force should be used during times of war was an idiot, in his opinion. It was like Dumbledore spat on all the sacrifices of those who died in war just because he was squeamish about killing others.

* * *

The twins were howling with laughter when they learned from Jamie who it was that shot a tranquilizer in Lucius Malfoy's ass after the game. Thanks to the bets they had with Sakura, they had more money to invest in their dream of a new joke shop.

Jamie offered to be their silent partner, and when they approached the cheerful author Sakura later, she became their second investor.

The fact was that she was moving back to Britain to annoy Malfoy, who couldn't stand the sight of her.

Sirius, when he heard of her plan through Jamie, offered to let her buy his family's ancestral home so long as she promised not to use the dark artifacts inside.

Instead she did him one better...she contacted the goblins about either breaking the curses or destroying the artifacts completely. The books she kept, as she was a known bibliophile.

That and one blasting curse later resulted in a new doorway and the annoying as hell painting removed from the house.

Considering the house also came with a deranged house elf, she opted to trade one of the Malfoy elves for Kreacher, seeing as how he didn't know much about Sakura or anything incriminating.

Dobby was quite pleased to work as Sakura's new elf, and Kreacher was much happier with Narcissa. Because of the fact Dobby couldn't actively try to remove Jamie, he had been stuck with the Malfoys all this time.

"So Jamie, what's this we hear about you following that author lady around like a puppy?" asked Fred.

"Who told you that?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Charlie did," said George.

"Seemed to think it quite amusing to be honest," said Fred.

Most of the Weaslys considered Jamie and Charlie to be family, especially since Charlie offered to help them pay for school expenses in exchange for them having the kids help around the base.

Weaslys hated charity, so it was a compromise Molly and Arthur could live with.

"Guys, if you intend to crow about me finally 'becoming a man', then I will have no choice but to tie you up and force you to experience something so traumatizing that you will want someone to obliviate the memory from you," said Jamie flatly.

He still couldn't believe Sakura forced him to watch those movies.

"And what pray tell would that involve?" asked Fred amused.

"Believe me when I say you would be better off knowing," said Jamie with a grimace.

Sakura had introduced him to some movies from her house in America, and Jamie had come out of it very traumatized.

He may tolerate Snape to a point, but the idea of a body double would disturb most teenagers, especially when it was a disliked teacher.

An hour into their light hazing over the fact his hormones had finally kicked in, Jamie swore to make them suffer what he had suffered.

* * *

Jamie was eager to see the new DADA teacher, as he had heard only good things about Alastor Moody from Charlie. Apparently Moody was one of the few who didn't fall for that pacifist crap Dumbledore spewed out during the war.

So when he first say the war hero, his initial assessment was disappointment...followed by reasonable suspicion.

Charlie said that Moody lost his leg years ago. So why on earth did he walk like one of the newer veterans who had just lost a limb? After three years working with them, he could spot the difference right off, and some of the veterans found it soothing to talk to a youngster who was interested in their story and wanted to learn from their mistakes.

Some of the younger vets who recently lost a limb found it therapeutic to talk to the older ones who knew exactly what they were going through.

"What's eating you Jamie?" asked Susan. She was a part-time member of the Otaku club, and she usually gave them heads up in case her aunt was coming to visit. In exchange they kept her out of anything her aunt would legally be forced to come and put a stop to.

"Moody lost his leg years ago right?"

"About ten at least, why?" asked Hannah.

"So why exactly is he walking like someone with a new prosthetic?"

"How can you tell?" asked Justin.

"There are at least a hundred people back at the base that use them. After a while you can tell if someone recently got a new one or lost a limb within the last year or so. From what I can see, his leg is fairly worn in, meaning he's had it for a while and should be used to it by now. But look at the slight limp," said Jamie.

Several Puffs turned and observed Moody's behavior and physical signs. Jamie was right, there was something wrong with Moody. He kept moving his fake leg as if he hadn't had one before and still felt the phantom limb. He did the bare minimum of acting like a former soldier, but it was clearly faked. And Susan noted that he took a swig from his flask at least once an hour, and the dinner lasted for three.

Which meant that Moody was either being impersonated with polyjuice, or someone had him under control.

"Jamie, do you have an owl I can borrow later?" asked Susan seriously.

"Someone got me a new Snowy owl for my birthday so I could keep in contact," said Jamie offhand.

"Who?"

Jamie blushed and refused to say.

"It's a girl isn't it?" said Justin knowingly. His dad had given him the talk last year.

Jamie refused to talk, but the jibing his dorm mates gave him only increased the number of people he was going to hogtie and force through a movie marathon.

Sakura had given them the spell to allow a DVD player to run on magic, but said that they should continue to work on it so they could add other tech to the list.

* * *

Amelia Bones looked up to see a beautiful snow owl with a letter in it's claws. She could tell from the handwriting it was from Susan, though it concerned her that her niece would write almost immediately after the feast.

The second she read the contents, however, her worry quickly turned to rage.

Someone impersonating Moody and infiltrating the school? Heads would roll, starting with Dumbledore for not noticing something was wrong!

* * *

Two days into the year, Amelia Bones and three full groups of Aurors and Hit Wizards stormed the school. Dumbledore was caught off guard and was having a bit of a lie in, so he didn't know about their presence until much too late.

"Amelia, what is the meaning of this?" asked McGonagall.

"I got a letter from my niece right after I sent her back to the school about Moody. According to her Alastor is either an imposter or has been brainwashed."

"What proof do you have?" asked Snape.

"Jamie Potter noticed Moody wasn't acting right and as they watched they could tell several signs that something was off. They also said that Moody drank from a flask on his hip once an hour on the hour during the feast."

"Polyjuice," said Snape, getting the connection immediately.

"If they're right, then we're protecting the students from a fake or a brainwashed ex-Auror. If they're wrong, then they're merely exercising some of that Constant Vigilance he's always going on about. Either way, it's better to check."

"I'll get some truth serum. I keep it in my stores in case of students doing something highly illegal, or to confirm cases of abuse," said Snape.

Technically he shouldn't even have it, but he doubted Bones would talk about it as long as he volunteered it and gave a good excuse for why he had brewed some.

Amelia nodded to Snape, as the reasons he gave were more than enough for her to overlook his possession of a controlled substance.

'Moody' looked very surprised when Amelia stormed into his class with several Aurors. He continued to keep up his charade right up to the point Snape handed her a very familiar potion.

Realizing the jig was up, he started cursing them. Beams of green flew across the room, and one Auror was killed by the curse.

He might have continued firing...except there was a sound of something being fired and suddenly he couldn't see. Two more shots and his fake leg slipped out from under him.

Unlike the real Moody, the fake didn't know that the odd sleeve the man had on his leg was to keep it in place. It was something Charlie had introduced him to, as the real Moody had been using sticking charms up until that point.

The fake slipped and fell to the ground, and was too far from his desk to lean against it, not to mention it would be harder to aim his wand.

Amelia's furious scowl as she had him bound to a chair was terrifying for some of the younger Aurors...but they went past it out of anger that one of their own had fallen to this fake.

Ten minutes later, the polyjuice wore off revealing a man that by all rights should have been dead. Barty Crouch Jr.

Once they had him in custody, the Aurors searched the room and found the real Moody alive and in his own trunk. He was dehydrated and starving, but very much aware of what had happened.

Amelia met with Jamie Potter, who had shot the paintballs at the fake and had given them their chance to apprehend the man.

"Good aim," she said.

"I'm a regular at the game. I saw what was happening and brought my gun to help out," he admitted.

"I suppose I have you to thank for alerting us this quickly to the imposter."

"He chose the wrong person to fake. It was just his bad luck that I know what an amputee looks like with a fake limb, and that his movements were all wrong. I would be dishonoring my family name if I hadn't done something to protect my fellow students," said Jamie.

Amelia looked pleased with his words, because she put a hand on his shoulder.

"You'll grow into a fine young man Mr. Potter, and don't let anyone tell you different. If only more of Slytherin could be the same," she said.

She left after chatting with Susan, who decided that instead of pursing a romantic relationship with Jamie that she would take a more active role in the club and be a better friend to him.

* * *

A week later and the real Moody was released from the hospital wing. Poppy had been all over him after she heard the news.

The first thing he did was call in Jamie Potter for his role in revealing the fake.

"At ease laddie. I heard from Amelia about how you exposed that rat and protected the students."

"I help out with my grandfather on the base, and there are at least a hundred amputees working there. I knew something was wrong by the way he walked and acted with his leg," admitted Jamie.

"Aye, and you were more observant than even Albus was. Makes me glad that at least one of these bloody children practices Constant Vigilance. Which is why I have an offer for you. How would you like to be my assistant for the year?" asked Moody.

"How so?" asked Jamie.

"You'll be exempt from most of the paper homework, and you'll help me grade papers. You'll also be helping me with security for this bloody tournament, and as an assistant you'll automatically be protected in case someone tries to force you into it against your will. One of the original rules that was never taken out was that a student can't act as security and participate at the same time."

"And the fact I can rope in my club to help is just a bonus?"

"Club?" asked Moody.

"How loyal are you to the Ministry or Dumbledore?" asked Jamie.

"Can't stand the Ministry and Dumbledore screwed up one too many times during the war. If push came to shove, I would side with your granddad at the first chance I had," admitted Moody.

"Good. I can clear you for next week then. Our first meeting of the year is on Friday," said Jamie.

* * *

Jamie was dressed as Dark Mousy from _D.N. Angel ,_ a series Sakura had wholeheartedly recommended for him. The fact they had recently found a way to make working wings was just a bonus.

"Everyone, I know you're all wondering why Professor Moody is here. The honest answer is that he's more loyal to our cause than Dumbledore or the Ministry. And I was hoping some of you would be willing to work security around the cup to insure nothing happens to our fellow students."

"Alastor Moody is a former Auror...and a conniving son-of-a-bitch, if you'll pardon my language, when it comes to fighting with magic. He could be of great help towards some of our more offensive projects if given the chance," said Flitwick. Moody shot him a grin at the unbiased description.

While the cosplayers discussed who would do what in terms of security, Moody went over to Flitwick.

"This is that secret club you mentioned during the war, isn't it?"

"Yes. It has evolved slightly, but the original concept has remained the same. Spell research done by students to advance what we know of magic under the disguise of children reenacting their favorite series. Quite a Slytherin concept, and it was originally created by a Ravenclaw," said Flitwick smugly.

"I heard that crazy bitch was back in Europe."

"Sakura has bought the old Black ancestral home from Lord Black and is making a base of operations in the event the war restarts. According to her, it's only a matter of time before Voldemort returns."

"Knowing Narcissa, she may jump ship and hide with her," said Moody knowing. Those two were thick as thieves back when the girl was a fifth year and Narcissa was an second year. She even got along with Bellatrix Lestrange before she turned into a complete bitch.

And anyone with a pair of eyes knew that Narcissa barely tolerated Lucius and only cared for Draco because he was her only son.


	18. Chapter 18

It was October, and Jamie was already enjoying his new role as Moody's assistant. True, he had to do the homework that involved spell practice and had to help grade hundreds of papers...but the benefit far outweighed the downsides.

For example, Moody would tell him more about James and Lily from during the war before he was born.

Of course Jamie did get some amusing pictures while Moody watched with a gaping jaw as they practiced their usual show for Halloween.

"What in blazes is all that about?" he asked. Each of the eight dancers were in full costume to get used to the weight.

"Every year since Jamie joined, we do a show on Halloween. This year we're doing it to annoy Dumbledore who will probably do a half-assed one for the foreign students," explained Paul. He was the one helping with the costumes.

"Jamie is the club president for a reason," said Flitwick.

"That reminds me... Luna has managed to set up the Music and Communication club, and she needs a teacher to sponsor it," said Jamie.

"I'll talk to her later," promised Flitwick. The majority of the new club would be to help coordinate between the other subsections who knew what really went on in the Otaku club.

It was the fourth meeting that they had a surprise visitor...one who Jamie didn't mention was coming. He was once again dressed as Itachi.

"YES, I AM THAT AWESOME!" cried an insane woman who had appeared with cherry blossom petals and smoke. Behind her was a large piece of cloth announcing her to the world. She was dressed exactly like Anko Mitarashi, complete with her hair up.

"'The goddess of humor and super awesomeness, Sakura Hikari?' really?" said Jamie amused.

Behind him the other Otaku took a second to process her abrupt entrance, before they bowed to her sheer awesomeness.

Their founder had arrived!

It took Flitwick a few minutes for his heart rate to go down to process what just happened.

"Jamie, is this the surprise guest you mentioned earlier?" he asked.

"Grandpa invited her to the base, and she said that all the signs were pointing to a new war against Voldemort, so she asked if she could visit," said Jamie with a shrug.

"Suddenly her move back to England makes more sense..." said Flitwick. The girl may have been one of his ravens, but she was a Hufflepuff at heart. She would never leave her fellow Otaku hanging.

"Of course I moved back! I would never leave my Otaku to fend for themselves when I could team up with Cissy and annoy Lucy!" said Sakura offended.

"Cissy? Lucy?" said Paul.

"Narcissa Black and Lucius Malfoy. You should hear how she talks about our resident annoyance Draco," replied Jamie amused.

"Who wants to see me piss off the Malfoys in full view of the school?" she called out.

Nearly every hand went up.

* * *

Sakura appeared with great fan fare dressed as Lina Inverse with her hair dyed blood red. Unlike Lina, her considerable bust was barely being held back.

Jamie and several other Otaku felt she should have gone with a Naga the White Serpent costume, or that of Celphiel, if only for the shock value of Naga's rather rather racy outfit.

They were outvoted by the girls and Sakura, who acted more like Lina than Naga anyway.

She had wanted to go in as Sakura Kinimoto from Cardcaptors, but her personality didn't mesh properly with the timid brunette.

"YOU!" shrieked Draco.

"You got a problem blondie?" snarked 'Lina'.

"You're that insane bitch who convinced my mother to leave my father!" snarled Draco.

Narcissa had taken Anne's advice to ditch the Malfoy family, as it was clear that their blood was weak compared to the Blacks. So she got a divorce and left Draco to his father, stating that she didn't want to 'infect the Black bloodline further with such a weak heir'.

Lucius had started spitting nails after that announcement.

It was a calculated insult to the Malfoy name, one that would have resulted in a blood feud had they not been married. Unsurprisingly, it was also a valid excuse for a witch to divorce her pure blood husband from the old days.

One that the goblins reinforced.

Besides, Narcissa had done her duty as a pure blood and provided the Malfoy clan an heir. She wasn't bound to do a damn thing afterwords, and she had grown tired of Lucius' shadow.

It was little wonder she chose to side with Sakura Hikari, who had always been kind to her and treated her like an equal.

Still, Draco would have had his mother to rely on had she not reappeared and convinced the woman to leave the Malfoys behind.

"Ms. Hikari, for what reason did you return?" asked Dumbledore patiently.

She was a brilliant, if often misunderstood witch. However even Dumbledore admitted she was almost as insane as the Lovegood clan.

(Sakura is a regular subscriber to the Quibbler.)

"I got a request from the current club president, so I decided to drop by," she said cheekily.

There was little question what club she meant, her name was well known as the Otaku Club founder to the teachers.

"And what request was that?"

"He wanted some help creating a new club for music and broadcast enthusiasts like Mr. Jordan over in the Lion's corner," she said calmly.

"I was aware of a new club about to be formed, but not of it's purpose. What, exactly, would you do to help this new club?"

"Make it possible for all students to enjoy a student-run radio that can be heard even in the halls between classes," said Sakura flatly.

"Student-run radio?" asked Sprout.

"I have in my possession a spell that would allow magical speakers to play acceptable music and broadcasts throughout the halls for all the students to hear. As I recall, there was an issue of a troll in the castle three years ago? A broadcast club would have been able to get the attention of any wayward students and direct them to safe locations promptly. Not to mention it would keep the teachers from being tired after a Sonorus charm."

McGonagall winced at the jibe, because during the incident with the Chamber her throat had been sore for hours because of the charm.

"I suppose it wouldn't do any harm to add these...speakers...to the school. They will be maintained by the students of course?" asked Dumbledore.

"I will leave all notes on how to create and repair them with this new club, and the Otaku club so they can add charms to them."

"I don't suppose you would be against joining us for dinner that you so elaborately interrupted?" said Flitwick with a smile.

"And deny my fellow Ravenclaws a chance to talk to an alumni who became a successful author? Perish the thought!" she beamed at him.

And with those words, she was promptly swamped by her fellow ravens for details.

* * *

Sakura managed to get the speaker system set up just before the groups from the foreign schools showed up. Naturally Flitwick invited her to watch them arrive.

Dumbledore could already tell the woman planned to return next year...possibly as the new DADA teacher as Moody had said loudly he was only here for this year.

Jamie heard the horses before he saw them. They were close enough to the lake that the sound of their whinnies carried over the water.

Most gasped at the pegasi (which was what Sakura said they were, as it was the plural form of pegasus) brought the carriages down.

Once the girls came out, most of the boys were holding back their drool. Jamie, ever the gentleman, immediately went over to the first shivering girl and offered his cloak. She took it gratefully as did the other girls when several of the Otaku followed his lead. They returned the cloaks later once they had retrieved their own the next day.

The Bulgarians were next to arrive, and once again Jamie was the first to note their arrival. Everyone gasped as the lake began to drop down (like a toilet would when flushed, Sakura snidely remarked) and a ship began to appear.

Like the French girls, the Bulgarians were quick to enter the castle as their outfits weren't built for what they considered to be a mild temperature compared to their school.

Once all the students were in, Flitwick noticed how gleeful Sakura seemed as she had been party to the Otaku's usual Halloween show's practice. She even had a magically-run video camera to capture the event.

Durmstrang went first, followed by Beauxbatons. Then came the surprise the Otaku had in store for the entire school, narrowly beating Dumbledore to the punch.

*****Sparks flew after Beauxbatons did their performance. Fred and George 'mysteriously' vanished mere seconds after, as a low hum filled the air. That hum quickly became a beat as music filled the air.

Students in the know started joining the beat, making it irresistible to everyone. Jamie's flash mob had begun.

"_**Hey, hey everybody! We have something to say!"**_ sang the most unusual group of students. There was one of each house, both boy and girl. The girls wore their house colors on their skirts proudly and had the tails of the house animal on their backside. The boys were the same, only instead of pants they wore kilts. McGonagall looked amused by that.

"_**We may seem as different, as the Night is from Day. But you look a little deeper, and you will see! That I'm just like you and you're just like me! Yeah!"**_

Both groups converged on the opposite end of the hall so everyone could see them properly. Now their full costume could be seen. The Ravenclaw singers had beak and wings. The Slytherins had hoodies that were pulled up and had extended fangs and snake-like eyes. The Gryffindors were a lion and lioness respectively. And the Hufflepuffs had whiskers and buckteeth. And their feet looked like claws and talons. The Slytherins just wore snake skin boots.

All eight students were paired with their rival house and gender. A Gryffindor boy and Slytherin girl, a Hufflepuff boy and Ravenclaw girl. This was a deliberate move orchestrated by the leader of the group, Jamie.

He wanted to show house unity to everyone, even if it was just for one night.

Plus it would show up Dumbledore and a give a united front to the rival schools.

"_**Hey, hey everybody! We're here to shout! That the magic of friendship is what it's all about! Yeah, we thought we were different as the Night is from the Day. Until magic helped us see another way!"**_

All the pairs danced down the tables, it was clear that the original idea for this flash mob was working. Everyone was enjoying the show, even the Slytherins!

"_**So get up! Get down! If you're gonna come around! We can work together helping Hogwarts win the cup! So get up, get down! Cause it's gonna make a sound! If we work together helping Hogwarts win the cup!"**_

The girls split off from the boys and started singing solo.

"_**Hey, hey hands up now! We're sending a message to the crowd! Hands wave up, then come down! We party together all around!"**_

The girls spun in a circle at the last word as the boys picked it up.

The Gryffindor boy started, then Ravenclaw, Slytherin and ending with Hufflepuff.

"_**Courage!"**_

"_**Intelligence!"**_

"_**Cunning!" **_

"_**And Loyalty!"**_

The group all started to sing together again as they picked up the song again.

"_**Magic helped us each to see all that we can be!"**_

They danced down the tables in groups, clapping along to the beat while they were singing.

"_**So get up, get down! If you're gonna come around! We can work together helping Hogwarts win the cup! So get up, get down! Cause it's gonna make a sound! If we work together helping Hogwarts win the cup!"**_

Now select pairs started to sing. It was clear why they were chosen, they had the best voices of the group.

"_**We're going to be ourselves no matter what we do! And if we're different then we want you to be true to you! If you follow us, and we'll put your differences aside. We'll stick together and start working on that school pride!"**_

"_**Jump up, make a sound! Stomp you feet, turn around! Start now, make a change! Gonna come around! Jump up! Make a sound! Stomp your feet, turn around! Hogwarts School help us win the cup!"**_

Now all the students were joining in on the last chorus and dancing.

"_**Jump up, make a sound! Stomp you feet, turn around! Start now, make a change! Gonna come around! Jump up! Make a sound! Stomp your feet, turn around! Hogwarts School help us win the cup!"**_

When fireworks went off, everyone looked up to see a red and gold lion, a bronze and blue raven, a green and silver snake and a yellow and brown badger explode in the night sky. As glitter rained down from above, the singers all lined up against the great hall doors.

Everyone cheered them, as it was the best show of school unity Hogwarts had given in many years.

Jamie stood before the group and said clearly (he had a sonorous charm on his throat so he could be heard clearly) "The Drama and Otaku clubs hope you enjoyed our little surprise! We would like to welcome Beauxbatons and Durmstrang to our humble school and hope that we call all enjoy this tournament!"

Everyone cheered as they all took a bow. Sakura gave him a thumbs up for the performance.

They took their seats still in costume, though they removed their hoods first.

* * *

Fluer looked for her favorite pudding, and spotted it on the Gryffindor table next to an appalling boy with no manners. Jamie noted her distress, and sent a certain Cerberus pup to get the pudding for her. The twins put it on the middle head, and the two others supported it. Seeing Fluer's surprise, Jamie explained.

"My original pet happened to get the groundskeeper's Cerberus 'Fluffy' pregnant in my first year, and he gave me one of the pups. I chose the runt because it would have died otherwise. Meet Tsume, Kiba and Toboe."

He gently guided Fluer's hand to Tsume's head, and she gasped with pleasant surprise.

"I thought a Cerberus was massive?"

"Like I said, they were the runt of the litter and it takes three years for the runts to reach full size. Fluffy was almost half grown when Hagrid got her, and she took up almost an entire room."

"How is he so tame?"

"I know people who train dogs... the real trick was training them all at the same time. I mostly have them bring me things that my German Shepard Scruffy can't. You should see the training dummies I set them on when I train them in attack commands."

"You trained your dogs to attack?!" she said in shock.

"Have you never seen a police dog attack a criminal? I put them through the same military training that the government uses for drug-sniffing dogs. Part of that is attack commands, and they are trained well enough to never harm a human without confirming with their 'Alpha' which is me or their trainer, first. The rest is pack mentality."

"You can see the other dogs in the morning. Jamie and Neville run with Hagrid and his dog Fang every morning to keep them in shape," said Cedric.

Fluer was curious to see what sort of man this Jamie was, as that show had been better than anything their school and the Bulgarians had done by far.

* * *

***_ I have had this scene written soon after seeing Equestria Girls, and had to wait for fourth year before I could use it. This song is an altered version of the one done by the Mane Six to help Twilight Sparkle win back her crown from Sunset Shimmer, and I couldn't get the scene out of my head. I recommend looking up the original on Youtube, because it's worth watching! The song title is 'Helping Twilight Sparkle Win the Crown' or 'Equestria Girls song'._**


	19. Chapter 19

Luna was skipping along the halls as she had just secured a rather amusing series of articles for the Quibbler courtesy of her favorite club founder.

Sakura was almost as interesting as her, only people actually took her seriously!

Tomorrow they would be letting people put names into the goblet, and it would be going on for three days. Jamie had asked his fellow Otaku fifth year and above to guard it. Dumbledore, he said, had the rather disturbing habit of using very lax security measures when a stricter guard was often needed.

It was little wonder that people liked Jamie more than they did the illustrious Headmaster...Jamie did more for others than Dumbledore did unless there was some other motive in mind!

* * *

Hermione, for all her love of books, was in a rage. Today was Sakura's first article, set shortly after she left the school and still one day left to submit names.

Her hands trembled with anger as she started to reread the article.

"_Hello Great Britain! It is lovely to see these shores after I graduated, and what a mess I've found since my return!_

_Many of you enjoy my fiction series about the world-hopping Gabriel and his sidekick fox-demon Fireball, so now you can enjoy my often non-fiction articles for a fraction of the cost! Don't worry magical Britain, I will be sure to at least warn you when I slip some of my stories into this publication, unlike a certain wizard so many witches previously adored who turned out to be a fraud._

_Why don't I start my first article with a high note..._

_During my brief return to my alma mater Hogwarts, I noted with approval that students were using a formerly feared area in the school many of you know as the Chamber of Secrets to do something constructive with their free time._

_All of them had dismissed house boundaries and pure blood ideals to help each other work on their homework, learn a new spell, or study the old arts. Some were even taking up the old way of using swords in Japan, a way that is sadly no longer remembered, or learning how to shoot a bow._

_Sadly, this is not the case above ground, as I was disheartened to discover that in the school proper, there seems to be a minature war brewing between those of old families and the new bloods that the teachers have done very little to stop._

_I fully pin this blame on Dumbledore, who seems to thrive in causing as much pain and chaos in the classroom as he can by forcing known rivals to share a class despite the complaints of his fellow teachers. One such case is that of Professor Snape, who has to do more oversight and thus less time on his own projects because of his Slytherin/Gryffindor class._

_Another thing I've noted with some dismay is the state of the Hogwarts library. It is one of the biggest magical libraries in Europe...and to my great horror as a Ravenclaw, almost completely out of date._

_You've read this correctly my fellow Ravenclaws. The Hogwarts library is almost completely out of date compared to the rest of the world. The alchemy texts were almost falling apart, the enchanter's dictionaries and guide was nearly eaten by bugs (it appears that the spells to keep them out had fallen apart) and the only copy of the reactive tables for the potions class had half the pages missing._

_My question to you readers and fellow alumni is can we allow this horrifying fact to continue? How will the children learn from an outdated text? What if they use the wrong information and get killed from something like a vampire because they had bad intel?_

_And so my first cry is 'Help me restore the Hogwarts Library to its original glory!'. We, as adult witches and wizards, cannot allow our children and future to leave school with an incomplete education!"_

Hermione was in a full rage because she had looked up the books mentioned and found that the insane author was entirely correct. The Hogwarts library was badly out of date and most of the more interesting books had been more or less destroyed over the years without anyone realizing it. Jamie wisely avoided bringing her ire about this knowledge down on him by keeping the subject well away from it.

He didn't want to get hexed.

* * *

It was the last night of the time period Dumbledore had given the students to enter their names, and the guard around it was still tight.

Several underage students had tried to get past them, only to be caught by the Otaku club and handed over to Snape, who was very delighted by the change in pace.

He was willing to overlook the Otaku being in the hall overnight if it meant they were able to make his job easier. So long as they didn't go wandering in the corridors it wasn't his problem.

Several of the fifth years and above were keeping a strict eye on the cup, only interfering when someone who clearly wasn't seventeen tried to enter.

The only time they looked the other way was when the twins came to enter, as they would be seventeen in a few months. They trusted Fred and George to handle it.

It was because of this guard over the cup that they prevented Filch, a man they knew to be a squib, from dropping a single piece of paper into the cup.

Several of the older students apprehended the fake when they saw a wand sticking out of Filch's back pocket.

Filch was a man who wouldn't like to keep reminders of his curse. The fact he was a squib working in a magical school full of children was bad enough...he didn't need a wand to do his job, and the only magical thing he could claim to own was his familiar.

When the polyjuice wore off, they could see the form of another Death Eater who had gotten off because of a flimsy defense. One of the students picked up the paper and his scowl said it all.

"Who was it?" asked Derrick, a seventh year Slytherin.

"Jamie. These bastards are seriously trying to get him killed this year," spat Micheal, a Gryffindor.

Dumbledore was beyond shocked that mere students had caught a seasoned Death Eater and refused to let the man up until the Aurors showed up.

"Now boys, be reasonable..." started Dumbledore.

"We'll be reasonable when you quit being such a pansy. This man is a known criminal who got off on a flimsy excuse, and Jamie asked us to keep our friends safe from things like this. You are not a proper authority figure, and this man is not a teacher. We are only going to release him to the custody of Madam Bones," said Micheal angrily.

"And I'm here. This is the second time I've had to remove a known Death Eater from this school Albus. This had better not become a habit," growled Amelia. She didn't appreciate the rude awakening.

"Sorry Madam Bones, but Jamie was quite clear when he gave us guard duty. Anyone not a student or teacher was only to be handed to a trusted authority figure, especially if they were Marked. He said Dumbledore wasn't the best person to give any prisoners to, since he let them go free before," said Micheal.

Amelia didn't show any sign of her surprise. She hadn't known there was hostility between Dumbledore and the Potter family...though it made sense because of how he mishandled the boy-who-lived's fame before his grandfather turned up alive.

She took the Death Eater into custody and threw him in the worst cell they had. She could deal with this in the morning.

* * *

It was Sakura's second article, and she was attacking the security of the school.

"_Are Our Children Safe?_

_Many was think that having someone as 'powerful' as Dumbledore would keep the danger level to a bare minimum at our beloved school._

_This is sadly not the case at all._

_Three years ago there was an incident in Halloween involving a rogue mountian troll in the halls. Mountain trolls, particularly adult ones, are known to eat human flesh. What was the headmaster's response to this clear threat? Was it to keep the children in the Great Hall and have the teachers deal with it?_

_NO! According to multiple sources, the students were told to return to their house dormitories in an orderly fashion._

_The problem I have with this is the fact that the DADA teacher who alerted the staff to the problem, one Professor Quirrel, said that the troll in question was in the dungeons...close to where the Slytherin dorms are. And yet Dumbledore still had all the children return to their dorms without considering this known fact._

_Two years ago, there was the threat of a basilisk at over ninety feet long, and yet it was a student, one Jamie Potter, who came up with the solution that kept our children from fraying from this threat and even dealt with the snake in question._

_This year we have had two, count it, TWO known Death Eaters infiltrate the school. One in the form of Mad-Eye Moody and another in the form of Filch, both under Polyjuice potion. Both were apprehended NOT by the teachers who are supposed to protect the children from outside threats, but by students who saw the danger and acted accordingly._

_It is to be noted that nearly all the children seem to follow Jamie Potter's lead when it comes to keeping our school safe...which begs the question, just how safe is Hogwarts if we are forced to rely on a military trained student who should be more concerned with his tests to keep it protected from outside forces?"_

* * *

Dumbledore fumed. His plans had fallen apart because the students were taking action on their own, no longer trusting him to do what was right.

All because he hadn't known Charlus Potter was in Privet Drive the entire time. And that he had managed to keep Petunia from ever learning her nephew was supposed to live with them.

To make matters worse, information he had kept secret by screening the children's mail had been made public for all the world to see. The girl was entirely correct that he had briefly forgotten the Slytherin dorms were in the dungeons that night, even if the only student unaccounted for until later was Jamie.

He took another pull of calming draught. Perhaps it was time to bring matters to a close in some cases...

Sakura had numerous muggleborns in her new home adjusting the internet connections and rewiring the place.

Number Twelve Grimmauld place was going to be their London HQ as it had numerous wards that she had updated and was less obvious than the Veteran's Association next to the Cauldron.

The last thing they needed was for Death Eaters to be able to come in masse that close to a civilian population and near the magical sector.

Besides, as a private residence they would have more leeway if Death Eaters barged in than they would in a public building.

Fortunately Sakura, as a half-blood, had a great deal of pull with her old friends, most of whom were muggleborns. She would have their command center up and running before the idiot Dark lord returned, or she would keep trying. At least Charlie was happy to fund her efforts. Having a secure communication line for them to use that wasn't connected to the base was a valuable asset...and Sirius didn't have any issues with her using the old Black library so long as she didn't use any of the really dark stuff.

* * *

"The champion for Hogwarts will be...George Weasly!"

There were many slaps of congratulations from the Gryffindor table, as George went up to where the champions were.

Dumbledore didn't know how the twins got past the age line...they were just under the cut off and shouldn't have been able to get through.

He didn't know the Otaku club had put their names in as a favor, for all the help they had given over the years.

With Jamie working security, he was inelligable as a champion so even if his name had come up, he couldn't have competed. And since he was made part of security before the tournament officially was set in motion, there was little Dumbledore could do about it.

* * *

George was pale a month later when he heard Charlie was coming back with a couple of friends to Hogwarts. The only possible reason his brother would be coming to Hogwarts would be if the first task involved dragons.

Which meant he was way out of his league.

"HELP!" he practically shrieked when he heard the news.

"What is it, and how bad?" asked Paul.

"First task is dragons!" said George.

"One word...fireworks," said Jamie, not looking up from his new manga.

"What?"

"What do you think a dragon's going to do when it sees fireworks coming it's way? Duck or flame. Either way it'll be distracted," said Jamie sensibly.

"Point. Now to other matters...are you aware that there are a large number of new players in the unofficial schoolwide poker tournament?" said George calming down.

Jamie suddenly put down his manga and smirked. All around him, several Otaku did the same.

"Ladies and Gents, you know what this means..." he said with an evil grin.

"FRESH BLOOD FOR THE MANGA GODS!" they replied omniously.

It was a fact that most of the students had difficulty funding their anime/manga habits. So Jamie took aside the best and brightest and turned them into card sharks to pay for the gigantic manga collection that belonged to the collective club.

And with the sudden influx of fresh meat, they would be updating the collection again.

It was a strange thing that even after she graduated, Sakura Hikari still managed to infect new members with her unique brand of insanity.

It was a much poorer, but hardly wiser group of Durmstrang students that left that secret room later that night.

Snape only left them alone because he got five percent of the cut as a bribe to help his personal potion stores. It was an arrangement Sakura made years ago that was upheld religiously to this day.

* * *

Jamie was inwardly grinning evilly as he had all those fourteen and over who had vexed him in the room with a wide screen TV. Tonight he was having a movie marathon that would horrify anyone who came in there.

Both the Weasly twins were in attendance as payback for the light joking they did on the Hogwarts Express, and the teachers were overlooking it after Jamie gave them a hefty bribe...it only worked because the only ones who were working the corridor that night were Sprout and Snape.

"Gents and Ladies, let the movie night begin!" cackled Jamie.

The first movie on the list was _Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street,_ followed by _Dogma_, _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,_ _Galaxy Quest_, _Die Hard, _and lastly _Robin Hood_.

The people inside were screaming by the time they realized who the corrupt judge in Sweeney Todd resembled. Since it was a musical/horror movie, Jamie got to enjoy their reactions to a SINGING SNAPE.

* * *

_**All the movies are those who have Alan Rickman in them that I can recall offhand. Sorry if I forgot to include them earlier. Also, the fact Jamie has a crush on Sakura is not a hint towards a pairing, but more of a schoolboy crush on an older woman. I have yet to decide any pairings as of now.**_

_**Also, I will be on vacation for two weeks after this post, so I will not be able to make any new chapters. There is also the fact that I am planning to make a new book and not fanfiction. When I finally complete it, I hope to have your full support.**_


End file.
